This interdisciplinary thesis examines rare poetic, didactic, fictional, and musical
texts written by women in latter eighteenth-century Britain for instances of and resistance
to contemporary perceptions of music as a form of social control.
The opening chapter defines and historicizes the term "social harmony," by
discussing neoclassical views of musical affect as productive of beneficial social
behaviours and gender definition. By delineating canonical aesthetic theorists' influence
upon women writers and musicians and assessing music's place in women's moral
education, this chapter complicates the idea of separate public and private spheres of
cultural achievement and introduces expanded views of women's agency as composers
and performers.
Next, the thesis appraises women's engagement with charity, musically enacted,
through formal musical and textual analysis of hymns, songs, and benefit performances and
publications. It marks the productive intersection of patronage and charity for women,
who could articulate divergent responses to such idealized or stereotyped objects of pity
as prostitutes and madwomen and benefit materially from so doing.
The third chapter considers women composers and writers' employment of
imitative and associative aesthetic practices in nature's musical representation, including
neoclassical and realist pastorals, the picturesque, and the sublime. It traces development
of a hybrid aesthetic of natural representation that enables performative and compositional
separation of femininity from nature in forms including the novel, song, and pastoral
drama.
The final chapter identifies contemporary anxieties concerning the depiction of
political, moral and gender-role stability within an increasingly international musical
discourse. It analyzes women's musical conceptions of cultural difference and national
identity in ballad operas and pastiches in light of these conflicts.
By crafting works consonant with societal ideals of charitable, natural, and national
order-or by re-imagining their participation in these musical aids to social
harmony-women composers, lyricists and performers contributed significantly to the
formation of British cultural identity. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/15671 |
| Date | 10 1900 |
| Creators | Ritchie , Leslie |
| Contributors | Walmsley, Dr. Peter, English |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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