E. M. Forster and Music

The first book focused on the political resonances of E. M. Forster's engagement with and representations of music.

Tsung-Han Tsai (Author)

9781108844314, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 May 2021

280 pages
15 x 23 x 1.5 cm, 0.46 kg

'… Tsai offers a deliberately decentred book that looks across more marginal works in Forster's oeuvre…[His] study offers so many insights by way of new contexts …' Will May, Music & Letters

This book examines the political resonances of E. M. Forster's representations of music, offering readings of canonical and overlooked works. It reveals music's crucial role in his writing and draws attention to a previously unacknowledged eclecticism and complexity in Forster's ideological outlook. Examining unobtrusive musical allusions in a variety of Forster's writings, this book demonstrates how music provided Forster with a means of reflecting on race and epistemology, material culture and colonialism, literary heritage and national character, hero-worship and war, and gender and professionalism. It unveils how Forster's musical representations are mediated through a matrix of ideas and debates of his time, such as those about evolution, empire, Britain's relationship with the Continent, the rise of fascism, and the emergence of musicology as an academic discipline.

Introduction
1. The Rhythm of the Racial Other: Before Aspects of the Novel
2. The Queering of Musical Instruments
3. From Literary Heritage to National Character
4. The Problem of the Wagnerian Hero
5. Amateurism, Musicology, and Gender
Postlude.

Subject Areas: Literature & literary studies [D], Music reviews & criticism [AVC], Music [AV]