Women writing music in late eighteenth-century England
Subtitle: social harmony in literature and performance
By: by Leslie Ritchie.
Series: Performance in the long eighteenth century : Studies in theatre, music, dance
Publisher: Ashgate
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Aldershot, Hants, England; Burlington, VT
Language: eng
Number of pages: 269
ISBN-13: 9780754663331
Subjects: Women musicians -- England -- History -- 18th century; Music -- Social aspects -- England -- History -- 18th century; Music by women composers -- England -- 18th century -- History and criticism
Description: "Combining new musicology trends, formal musical analysis, and literary feminist recovery work, Leslie Ritchie examines rare poetic, didactic, fictional, and musical texts written by women in late eighteenth-century Britain. She finds instances of and resistance to contemporary perceptions of music as a form of social control in works by Maria Barthelemon, Harriett Abrams, Mary Worgan, Susanna Rowson, Hannah Cowley, and Amelia Opie, among others. Whether crafting works consonant with societal ideals of charitable, natural, and national order, or re-imagining their participation in these musical aids to social harmony, women contributed significantly to the formation of British cultural identity. Ritchie's interdisciplinary book will interest scholars working in a range of fields, including gender studies, musicology, eighteenth-century British literature, and cultural studies."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [223]-256).
Table of contents: title: Discipline, pleasure, and practice; title: Women's occasion for music : the performative continuum & lyrical categories; title: Caritas, or, Women and musically enacted charity; title: Arcadia, or, Women's strategic use of the pastoral; title: Britannia, or, Women and songs of nation and otherness.