Poetry and Music in Seventeenth-Century England

An exploration of the relationship between poetry and music in the seventeenth century.

Diane Kelsey McColley (Author)

9780521036290, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 23 April 2007

332 pages, 10 music examples
22.8 x 15 x 1.4 cm, 0.496 kg

'With an impressive discography and bibliography, as well as a useful index, the book is of utmost interest to the musicologist and the specialist of poetry.' Cahiers Elisabéthains

This study explores the relationship between the poetic language of Donne, Herbert, Milton and other British poets, and the choral music and part-songs of composers including Tallis, Byrd, Gibbons, Weelkes and Tomkins. The seventeenth century was the time in English literary history when music was most consciously linked to words, and when the mingling of Renaissance and 'new' philosophy opened new discovery routes for the interpretation of art. McColley offers close readings of poems and the musical settings of analogous texts, and discusses the philosophy, performance, and disputed political and ecclesiastical implications of polyphony. She also enters into the discourse about the nature of language, relating poets' use of language and composers' use of music to larger questions concerning the arts, politics and theology.

List of musical examples
Acknowledgements
Editions and abbreviations
Note on musical editions
Note on orthography
Introduction
1. Nature's voice: concent of words and music
2. The concinnity of the arts and the church music controversy
3. Tuning the instrument: Donne's temporal and extemporal song
4. The choir in Herbert's temple
5. 'Sole, or responsive': voices in Milton's choirs
6. Empire of the ear: the praise of music
Appendix I. Music, poems and iconography for the liturgical year
Appendix II. Chronology
Appendix III. Glossary of musical and liturgical terms
Notes
Discography
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: poetry & poets [DSC]