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dc.contributor.advisorSutton, Emma
dc.contributor.authorWatson, Anna Elizabeth
dc.coverage.spatialviii, 269 p.en_US
dc.date.accessioned2014-09-23T13:06:55Z
dc.date.available2014-09-23T13:06:55Z
dc.date.issued2014-06-24
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10023/5479
dc.description.abstractThis thesis explores the gendered symbolism of women’s music lessons in English fiction, 1870-1914. I consider canonical and non-canonical fiction in the context of a wider discourse about music, gender and society. Traditionally, women’s music lessons were a marker of upper- and middle-class respectability. Musical ‘accomplishment’ was a means to differentiate women in the ‘marriage market’, and the music lesson itself was seen to encode a dynamic of obedient submission to male authority as a ‘rehearsal’ for married life. However, as the market for musical goods and services burgeoned, musical training also offered women the potential of an independent career. Close reading George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda (1876) and Jessie Fothergill’s The First Violin (1877), I discuss four young women who negotiate their marital and vocational choices through their interactions with powerful music teachers. Through the lens of the music lessons in Emma Marshall’s Alma (1888) and Israel Zangwill’s Merely Mary Ann (1893), I consider the issues of class, respectability and social emulation, paying particular attention to the relationship between aesthetic taste and moral values. I continue by considering George Du Maurier’s Trilby (1894) alongside Elizabeth Godfrey’s Cornish Diamonds (1895), texts in which female pupils exhibit genuine power, eventually eclipsing both their music teachers and the artist-suitors for whom they once modelled. My final chapter discusses three texts which problematize the power of women’s musical performance through depicting female music pupils as ‘New Women’ in conflict with the people around them: Sarah Grand’s The Beth Book (1895), D. H. Lawrence’s The Trespasser (1912) and Compton Mackenzie’s Sinister Street (1913). I conclude by looking forward to representations of women’s music lessons in the modernist period and beyond, with a reading of Katherine Mansfield’s ‘The Wind Blows’ (1920) as well as Rebecca West’s The Fountain Overflows (1956).en_US
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherUniversity of St Andrews
dc.rightsCreative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
dc.rights.urihttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
dc.subjectMusic in literatureen_US
dc.subjectMusic lessonsen_US
dc.subjectGenderen_US
dc.subjectEliot, Georgeen_US
dc.subjectFothergill, Jessieen_US
dc.subjectMarshall, Emmaen_US
dc.subjectZangwill, Israelen_US
dc.subjectDu Maurier, Georgeen_US
dc.subjectGodfrey, Elizabethen_US
dc.subjectGrand, Sarahen_US
dc.subjectMackenzie, Comptonen_US
dc.subjectLawrence, D. H.en_US
dc.subjectMansfield, Katherineen_US
dc.subjectWest, Rebeccaen_US
dc.subject.lccPR788.W65W2
dc.subject.lcshEnglish fiction--19th century--History and criticismen_US
dc.subject.lcshMusic--Instruction and study--Fictionen_US
dc.subject.lcshWomen in literatureen_US
dc.subject.lcshSex role in literatureen_US
dc.subject.lcshMusic in literatureen_US
dc.titleMusic lessons and the construction of womanhood in English fiction, 1870-1914en_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.contributor.sponsorArts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)en_US
dc.type.qualificationlevelDoctoralen_US
dc.type.qualificationnamePhD Doctor of Philosophyen_US
dc.publisher.institutionThe University of St Andrewsen_US
dc.rights.embargodate2024-05-27en_US
dc.rights.embargoreasonThesis restricted in accordance with University regulations. Print and electronic copy restricted until 27th May 2024en_US


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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
Except where otherwise noted within the work, this item's licence for re-use is described as Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International