Word Like a Bell: John Keats, Music and the Romantic PoetMusic was supremely important to the Romantic poets, particularly to John Keats. In this first book-length study on the subject, John A. Minahan explores Keats's work in relation to the art of music. Word Like a Bell considers Keats's major poems as well as his letters and minor verse. Writing in a jargon-free style, Minahan examines the relationship between the musical and literary manifestations of Romantic theory, and the connection between that theory and Keats's work. He then offers new insights into Keats's poetry and his era, among them a detailed explanation of why the "Great Odes" ought to be considered a single extended piece. Also receiving extensive treatment are Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, whose ideas and creations illustrate how music influences every aspect of Romantic thought. In his exploration of the relationship between different but related arts, Minahan both locates Romanticism in its historical and aesthetic context and expands the capabilities of literary criticism. He finds that music enables Romanticism to voice its fundamental concern about time and its passage, and shows us that an understanding of poetry's relation to music can enrich our appreciation of both arts while deepening our own experiences of time. This interdisciplinary study will appeal to readers of poetry and literary criticism and to professional musicians who would increase their understanding of an age's art, songwriters interested in word/music relations, and poets who crave an extensive discussion of poetic technique and craft that uses music as a way to clarify such points. |
From inside the book
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Page 20
... unfolding itself to be significant . Such signification is an object of primary attention in music . Romantic poetry seeks this status for verbal signification , thus turns to music for a model and a vocabulary . We can- not understand ...
... unfolding itself to be significant . Such signification is an object of primary attention in music . Romantic poetry seeks this status for verbal signification , thus turns to music for a model and a vocabulary . We can- not understand ...
Page 57
... unfolding of the poem , and how that unfolding in turn be- comes an enactment for the reader of both the poet's and the knight's experience . Music begins in the ordinary world . Then it becomes a fairy's song that leads away to a ...
... unfolding of the poem , and how that unfolding in turn be- comes an enactment for the reader of both the poet's and the knight's experience . Music begins in the ordinary world . Then it becomes a fairy's song that leads away to a ...
Page 89
... unfolding over time contributes to meaning in ways that are similar in highly specific ways to the patterns of unfolding that govern the mean- ings of musical compositions . We saw in part 1 how the deployment of musical imagery can ...
... unfolding over time contributes to meaning in ways that are similar in highly specific ways to the patterns of unfolding that govern the mean- ings of musical compositions . We saw in part 1 how the deployment of musical imagery can ...
Contents
The Varieties of Musical Experience | 29 |
Words Music and Interpretation | 59 |
The Romantic Uses of Sound | 98 |
Copyright | |
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Common terms and phrases
Abrams act musically Agnes argued artist artwork attention awareness ballad Bate Beadsman beauty becomes Beethoven Belle Dame called chord Coleridge combinatory composed composition couplet difference dream emotion empty enacts Endymion epic etry Eve of St experience Fall of Hyperion fancy feel finer tone harmony hear Heath Hyperion ideas imagination Indolence insight John Keats Keats's literary lovers lyric Madeline meaning melody melos memory meter mind Mozart Neubauer never notes Ode on Indolence Ode to Psyche odes organized past pattern perception perhaps poem poem's poet's poetic poetry and music Porphyro present prosody provides Psyche Pythagorean re-collection referential relation rhetorical rhyme rhythm Romantic poets Romanticism says seems sense shape Shelley sonata song sonnet sound Special stanza structure temporal theme thing thought Tintern Abbey tion truth understand unfolding utterance verbal language verse verse paragraph voice wanted words Wordsworth writing