Aspects of national identity in the art songs of Ralph Vaughan Williams before the Great War
type: CreativeWork
description: This dissertation explores how the art songs of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) composed before the Great War expressed the composer’s vision of “Englishness” or “English national identity”. These terms can be defined as the popular national consciousness of the English people. It is something that demands continual reassessment because it is constantly changing. Thus, this study takes into account two key areas of investigation. The first comprises the poets and texts set by the composer during the time in question. The second consists of an exploration of the cultural history of British and specifically English ideas surrounding pastoralism, ruralism, the trope of wandering in the countryside, and the rural landscape as an escape from the city. This dissertation unfolds as follows. The Introduction surveys the literature on Vaughan Williams and his songs in particular on the one hand, and on the other it surveys a necessarily selective portion of the vast literature of English national identity. The introduction also explains the methodology applied in the following chapters in analyzing the music as readings of texts. The remaining chapters progress in the chronological order of Vaughan Williams’s career as a composer. Chapter Two considers the three Barnes songs composed between 1901 and 1903 and published in The Vocalist. The chapter argues that these songs, in pitting the rural against the urban as seen in salient aspects of their music, epitomize Vaughan Williams’s engagement with the contemporary “Back-to-the-Land” movement. Chapter Three examines the Songs of Travel (text by Robert Louis Stevenson). This chapter argues is that Vaughan Williams’s 1904 song cycle displays the composer’s fascination with the figure of the gypsy, and the life of the wanderer-- preoccupations that were characteristic of the gypsophilia of the day—represented in his music by such figures as a tramping motive and a rhythmic fingerprint. Chapter Four is dedicate…
abstract: This dissertation explores how the art songs of English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) composed before the Great War expressed the composer’s vision of “Englishness” or “English national identity”. These terms can be defined as the popular national consciousness of the English people. It is something that demands continual reassessment because it is constantly changing. Thus, this study takes into account two key areas of investigation. The first comprises the poets and texts set by the composer during the time in question. The second consists of an exploration of the cultural history of British and specifically English ideas surrounding pastoralism, ruralism, the trope of wandering in the countryside, and the rural landscape as an escape from the city. This dissertation unfolds as follows. The Introduction surveys the literature on Vaughan Williams and his songs in particular on the one hand, and on the other it surveys a necessarily selective portion of the vast literature of English national identity. The introduction also explains the methodology applied in the following chapters in analyzing the music as readings of texts. The remaining chapters progress in the chronological order of Vaughan Williams’s career as a composer. Chapter Two considers the three Barnes songs composed between 1901 and 1903 and published in The Vocalist. The chapter argues that these songs, in pitting the rural against the urban as seen in salient aspects of their music, epitomize Vaughan Williams’s engagement with the contemporary “Back-to-the-Land” movement. Chapter Three examines the Songs of Travel (text by Robert Louis Stevenson). This chapter argues is that Vaughan Williams’s 1904 song cycle displays the composer’s fascination with the figure of the gypsy, and the life of the wanderer-- preoccupations that were characteristic of the gypsophilia of the day—represented in his music by such figures as a tramping motive and a rhythmic fingerprint. Chapter Four is dedicate…
author: Clark, Renee
language: en
keywords: Ralph Vaughan Williams 1872-1958, Ralph Vaughan Williams--musical settings, Art song--history and criticism, Song--English, 20th century, English national identity
date published: 2014-09-16T17:25:25Z
date modified: 2026-07-22T22:25:41Z
provider: University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

PropertyValue
property ID: Handle
value: http://hdl.handle.net/2142/50703