position i tidens skolor. Samtidigt relativiserar den denna bild genom att göra klart vilken perifer roll retoriken spelade som övertygandets konst. Tonvikten låg i stället på att vänja eleverna att skriva och tala på ett socialt accepterat sätt, identifiera sig med bestämda sociala roller och införliva de moraliska attityder som var förknippade med dem.

Nils Ekedahl

Martin Wåhlberg, *La scène de musique dans le roman du dix-huitième siècle* (Trondheim: Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, 2011). 391 pp.

Among the considerable examples of the intersection of music and French literature, one thinks of everything from the use of recurring turns of phrase as something of a musical refrain in the staged works of Samuel Beckett, for instance in *Oh les beaux jours* (1963), to scenes of music making as sites of temptation and seduction, for instance in *Les liaisons dangereuses* (1782) of Choderlos de Laclos. There is also the considerable history of the musical tableau in French literature, particularly in the eighteenth century, as represented in the works of Denis Diderot, Jacques Cazotte, Isabelle de Charrière, Sophie Cottin, and Germaine de Staël. It was Diderot himself who first used the word tableau in its modern sense, to describe a scene that arises naturally from within the course of a narrative, affecting the disposition of both the characters on stage or inscribed in the novel, and those on the outside, looking in or reading. The particular poignancy of the musical tableau, or the tableau involving characters who play musical instruments or sing, took on added depth in the French novel of the eighteenth century, where it played into the considerable discourse of sensibilité and affect that pervaded French social consciousness in these years.

In a sense it is from this considerable history of the musical tableau, inscribed in the French novel, that Martin Wåhlberg takes his cues in his dissertation on the musical scene in the French novel over the long eighteenth century. Careful at the outset to distinguish his research from that on tableaux and tableau theory, as exemplified in the work of Angelica Goodden ("Une peinture parlante": The Tableau and the Drame, *French Studies* 38/4, pp. 397-413), Pierre Frantz (L'esthétique du tableau dans le théâtre du XVIIIe siècle, Perspectives littéraires, Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998), and Tili Boon Cuillé (Narrative Interludes: Musical Tableaux in Eighteenth-Century French Texts, University of Toronto Romance Series, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006), Wåhlberg defines the musical scene, derived from the scène in use in the theater, as a situation, a distinct part, or an episode in the novel in which music is integrated into the narrative, whether as part of a performance on the part of one or more characters, as a scene of musical instruction, as a debate structured around the attributes of music itself, or as an instance of the insertion of an actual piece of printed music into the text of the novel. The variety of contexts for the musical scene included, but was not limited to, the lesson, the concert, and the rehearsal, and could draw on musical repertoire from the opera as equally as the mass. The dissertation shows that scenes in which songs were performed by characters in the novel were not only sites of marked sentimentality and affect, but were, in many cases, instances of the appearance of printed lyrics and music within the text, making the novel itself a multimedia work of art, an opéra en miniature containing narrative related to the musical scene as well as that music itself. Wåhlberg points out that this does not constitute a new genre for the novel, but rather an independent technique at work in novels over the course of the eighteenth century. He claims that the source of this musical and literary trend was
the *Histoire amoureuse de Pierre le Long* (1765) of Billardon de Sauvigny, the first novel of the second half of the century to integrate a number of songs into its text, and a work which, as Wâhlberg argues, draws inspiration from the medieval lyric in its near constant alternation of prose and music.

At every turn, Wâhlberg is at pains to underscore the idea that the musical scene in the French novel of the eighteenth century drew on the notion of music as an indefinable expressive force, a notion hotly debated in contemporary theoretical treatises, where it was likened to corporeal and medical phenomena, yet at the same time capable of a certain level of domestication in the hands of players and singers inscribed in the text of the novel. When confronting music as such, as this ineffable expressive force, characters in the novel came face to face with the realities of their musical knowledge, or savoir musical, which itself acted as a driving force in the development of the action of the novel. The character Suzanne in *La religieuse* of Diderot remarks on the extent of her own musical knowledge, taking time at moments in the narrative when she plays the keyboard to comment on her competency as a performer and her ability to move her audiences. Her detailed commentary on her idiosyncrasies as a performer makes Suzanne a figure who breaks through the boundaries and limitations of the tableaux of religious suffering and doom that pervade *La religieuse*; she uses her mastery of musical performance, and her commentary on playing and singing, to reach out directly to the reader, to establish sympathy at the level of savoir musical and practical music making.

A large portion of the study is devoted not to the examination of specific musical scenes in novels, but to the broader cultural and musical context of prose works that integrated musical scenes and printed music. A particularly important living musical tradition for the French novel of the eighteenth cen-

tury was the *opéra comique*, the genre of French opera, associated with the Parisian theater of the same name, that combined spoken dialogue with arias and *ariettes*. Emerging out of the popular *opéra comiques en vaudevilles* of the Théâtre de la foire, the vaudevilles that combined existing popular melodies with spoken sections, the form of the *opéra comique* known as the *comédie mêlée d'ariettes* took shape in the middle of the eighteenth century as composers began to write new music for the vaudevilles influenced by trends in contemporary Italian opera. As Wâhlberg points out, the expansion of the musical scene in the French novel of the eighteenth century was a phenomenon that coincided with the institutionalization and success of the *opéra comique*, particularly after its association with the Comédie-Italienne at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in the last third of the eighteenth century. These years not only saw the development of the *comédie mêlée d'ariettes* out of the vaudeville tradition, but saw the French novel, itself pervaded with musical scenes and *chansons*, become, as Wâhlberg argues, rather 'contaminated' with the air of the theater, particularly of the *opéra comique*. The alternation of declamation and singing in the *opéra comique* entered the domain of the novel in its melange of text and *chansons*. This combination of spoken dialogue and song remained particularly striking because of its challenge to vraisemblance, or the governing principal of truthfulness and believability derived from French spoken theater in the classical tradition. Ultimately the difference between the *comédie mêlée d'ariettes* and the musical scene of the French novel was related to vocal music, in which the relationship between voice and text was markedly different in the theatrical as opposed to the novelistic tradition. In the *opéra comique* in the second half of the eighteenth century, arias and *ariettes* dominated, whereas in the contemporary novel there was a marked preference for the romance. Wâhlberg asserts that through its relationship to the *opéra comique*, the novel mixed with chan-
sons can be considered a pretext for music, even though the quantitative relationship between music and text in these novels does not at first seem to allow for such an interpretation.

As for the musical scene itself, Wâhlberg first distinguishes between two novelistic traditions centered on the insertion of music into the text. On one hand, there were French novels that integrated a considerable number of songs into their text, and on the other, there were novels in which a single scene, or perhaps two scenes, gave rise to a performance of a chanson or romance. These constitute two fundamentally different approaches to the insertion of music into the text of the novel. In both cases, music appears at those moments in the narrative where emotion is at an intense high. The third chanson inserted into the text of the Histoire amoureuse de Pierre le Long of Billardon de Sauvigny, a complainte, arises at just such a moment, well past the introduction of the novel, when the complications woven into the crux of the plot begin to go awry. Pierre, in love with Blanche yet plagued by the deceptions of his rival and older sister, Geneviève, has to face, on one hand, the wishes of his mother, who has designs on marrying off his eldest daughter, and on the other hand, those of his father, who deems him suited to monastic life. Faced with so many obstacles, Pierre unleashes a doleful lament about his situation, 'O mes ennuis! O mes ennuis! Baillez-moi trêve, vous en prie' (Oh my troubles! Oh my troubles! Grant me respite, I beg you). Not only confined to laments and complaintes, music could arise in the novel in moments of great joy and jubilation in the narrative. In the novella Lorezzo of Baculard d'Arnaud, the chanson 'Laisse-moi goûter le plaisir' (Let me taste of pleasure) is introduced when Lorezzo, who has just discovered that he is not the brother of Nina, secures from her father permission to take her hand in marriage. After Lorezzo and Nina innocently kiss, the chanson is introduced in the text with the following lines: 'Lorezzo, dans ces plaines

rianter, assis aux pieds de Nina, lui chantait ces vers' (Lorezzo, in happy straits, sitting at the feet of Nina, sang to her these verses). This is a key moment in the narrative in which Lorezzo, certain of his success, believes all obstacles have been removed from his path, and is so overcome with joy that he bursts into song.

The instances of song in the various musical scenes of the French novel are, as Wâhlberg attests, moments when music appeals to the reader on an auditory, yet in many cases also a visual level. The appeal to the visual is never more striking than in those instances when the music of various chansons, romances, and complaintes was itself inserted into the text of the novel, making this music readily available for readers themselves to perform and enjoy. An address to the reader on the subject of the chansons in the Histoire amoureuse de Pierre le Long drives home the point that such musical insertions were intended specifically to move and sway the reader: 'Venez tous qui avez les sourcils si difficiles, que ne pouvez rien voir de bonne grâce, venez et oyez mes complaintes amoureuses; vous allez être mus de pitié, vous allez épandre des ruisseaux de larmes' (Come, all of you who have such difficult eyebrows, who can see no good grace, come and hear my amorous complaintes; you will be moved to pity, you will unleash floods of tears).

By far the most direct and unequivocal appeal to the reader, related to the insertion of songs in the text of the novel, appears alongside an interpolated romance in Caroline de Lichtfeld (1786) of Isabelle de Montolieu, in which the description of a romance sung by Caroline is transformed into a direct address to the reader: 'l'air convenait à sa voix, et les paroles à son cœur; elle la chantait du matin au soir, l'accompagnait alternativement sur la harpe, le clavecin et la guitare, et trouvait toujours un nouveau plaisir à la répéter. Nous allons la donner à nos jeunes lecteurs' (the air suited her voice, and the words suited her heart; she
sang from morning to night, accompanied variously by the harp, the keyboard and the guitar, and always found a new pleasure to repeat. We shall give it to our young readers). Through the insertion of actual music into the body of the novel, readers could simulate the musical experiences of the fictive characters about whom they read, thus entering into a level of sympathy and fellow feeling that made the experience of reading the novel one of intense identification and affinity. As for the songs whose music appeared within the text of various novels, their most marked characteristic, as Wâhlberg points out, is their uniformity. Strophic songs occur systematically across a number of texts, from the airs of François-André Danican Philidor appearing in the *Histoire amoureuse de Pierre le Long* to additional chansons in *Le diable amoureux* (1772) of Jacques Cazotte and *Blançay* (1788) of Jean-Claude Gorjy. The music composed for these texts was at every turn a product of the considerable vogue for the romance that swept through France in the wake of the Querelle des Bouffons, the projected debate over the respective merits of French and Italian opera in the middle of the eighteenth century.

Musical traditions in the middle of the eighteenth century in France, in the years before the majority of the novels Wâhlberg discusses would appear, were marked by the development of a critical language for the discussion of music itself, which, according to research by Belinda Cannone (*Philosophies de la musique, 1752-1789*, Théorie et critique à l'âge classique 4, Paris: Klincksieck, 1990), did not exist in the years prior. As French music criticism was more fully developed and codified after the middle of the century, a number of debates about the nature of music itself, the relationship between music and the body, musical and morality, and the relationship between contemporary music and its antecedents in the ancient world, entered into the discourse of theoretical treatises, which in turn influenced

discussions of music in the French novel. In the various musical scenes in which characters debate the nature of music, the idea of the effect of music, which permeates the novel of the eighteenth century, is linked particularly closely to the tradition of Greek thought on music from antiquity. Early music, and with it the idea of the effects of music on morality and the body, discussed by ancient writers, acquired the status of what Wâhlberg calls a fashion object in the eighteenth century. Writers of theoretical treatises, and just as equally characters in the novel itself, pursued the question of the effects of music through historical study, which was believed to have the power to unlock the secrets of the theory and practice of early music. As Wâhlberg points out, the vogue for early music in novelistic musical scenes was not limited to the sterile recovery of ancient theories and debates. The relationship between texts from classical antiquity and the musical scene of the eighteenth century was one involving rebirth and renewal, in which ancient ideas took on some of the concerns relevant in the middle of the eighteenth century, while still retaining their grounding in ancient political and moral thought. One area of ancient music theory to make a particularly strong impact on musical discourse in the eighteenth century was the condemnation of music as effeminate.

The narrator in the *Délassements de l'homme sensible* of Baculard d'Arnaud, published in the last two decades of the eighteenth century, at one point expresses his distaste for music, claiming that its softness prouve que les Grecs ne sont pas les seuls qui aient pratiqué et estimé cet art, dont ils retirent tant d'avantage pour la legislation (“proves that the Greeks are not the only ones who have believed and practiced this art, from which they derive so much benefit for the law”). As an outgrowth of this interest in early music and ancient music theories, many discussions of music in French philosophical and novelistic texts of the eighteenth century
featured reconsiderations and restatements of Platonic thought, in particular the division of music into several types, from profane to simple, each with its own effect on politics and morality. In *Le philosophe ignorant* (1766) of Voltaire, ancient music theory comes to bear on a condemnation of the role of music in society. While Voltaire rejects the Platonic idea of the direct relationship between music, morality, and public life, he nevertheless subscribes to the idea that music poses a threat to polite society.

In *Le neveu de Rameau* of Denis Diderot, the political importance of music in the writings of Plato serves as the inspiration for a strong link between three domains: music and political thought, music and morality, and music and mores. *Le neveu de Rameau*, as Wåhlberg points out, was far from the first satirical text to interweave considerations of music, politics, and society. Seneca, Plautus, Terence, and Horace number among the various classical authors to pursue such connections, while, closer to the eighteenth century, works of Rabelais and Boileau served as inspirations for the writings of Diderot. Wåhlberg, however, asserts that the examination of the relationship between music and its role in society in *Le neveu de Rameau* comes not from these antecedents in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but is a distinguishing feature of musical discourse in the ancient world. True to its inspiration, *Le neveu de Rameau* never shows this relationship to the ancient philosophy of music more clearly than when the nephew offers up an extensive analysis of how he gave music lessons and to what extent he tried to succeed in the world, showing that music, in society, is primarily used to open doors and empty wallets.

Throughout the dissertation, Wåhlberg paints a fascinating picture of a collection of French published works, extending from the novels of Cazotte and Cottin to the philosophical works of Voltaire as well as hybrid genres represented by *Le neveu de Rameau* of Di-

derot, works that engaged at a deep level with ancient and modern musical philosophy as well as the inscription of musical performance into discrete scenes in which characters played and sang. These scenes, in which readers confronted characters who offered musical instruction, used music to sway and seduce, and explored the limits of their own idiosyncrasies as musical performers, in every way played into the considerable discourse of music and sensibilité that swept through French philosophy and social thought in the eighteenth century. What Wåhlberg has produced is a study that will prove indispensable for future research not only on the multimedia nature of the French novel in the eighteenth century, but on French musical sensibilities in the early modern period, and in particular the relationship between ancient and contemporary philosophy in French musical thought. As for the audience for this study, Wåhlberg points out in his introduction that its considerable treatment of literary works, rather than pieces of music or composers per se, makes the dissertation a work perhaps better suited to literary scholars than to musicologists. In reality, the dissertation is a welcome addition to the study of musical performance as it was inscribed in the French novel of the eighteenth century, and of the insertion of actual pieces of printed music in the novel. For these reasons alone, the dissertation is likely to appeal not only to literary scholars, who will no doubt be more familiar with the canon of literary works Wåhlberg discusses, but to musicologists with interests in tableau theory, the history of pedagogy and musical instruction, the history of the French romance, and the circulation of musical texts and printed music outside the theater and concert hall proper.

Gina Rivera