Composing the body: narrative in the age of improvisation, 1770-1867

This dissertation analyzes how antebellum authors appropriated music—as bodily sentiment, scientific theory, and performative practice—to negotiate the social tensions that afflicted nineteenth century American culture. Drawing on a diverse archive of primary materials, I argue that music’s development into an improvisational aesthetic inspired sentimental authors to integrate musical form and theory into their compositional practices in ways that allowed them to explore the limits and freedoms of feeling. Pro-slavery southerners like Caroline Lee Hentz and Augusta Evans recognized a resemblance between European improvisation and the formless melodies of slave songs, forcing them to try to distinguish a white, sentimental musicality from “the wild, sad strains” of the slave. But other authors, including Herman Melville and Lydia Maria Child, took up the intersection of white and black musicality to recommend a new form of sympathetic listening, thereby challenging the nation’s dominate attitudes toward race.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2012

Author dc:creator

• Bechtold, Rebeccah

Contributors dc:contributor

• Loughran, Patricia
• Murison, Justine
• Chai, Leon
• Wood, Gillen

• American literature
• Sentimentality
• Music

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2012 Rebeccah Bechtold

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/34575

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/34575