There Is No Truer Truth: The Musical Aspect of Browning's Poetry

(Hardback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

Robert Browning interests musicians because he was a major poet as well as a competent musician. Music was a central theme in his poetry and formed the basis for many of his images and ideas. This unusual element compels musicological criticism as well as literary. The subject of Nachum Schoffman's book is the nature of Browning's musicality and the role and influence of music in his poetry. Schoffman carries the musicological analysis of Browning's poetry to its logical conclusions, revealing more than other literary critics have of the poet's musicality. On the basis of his analysis, he advances two new ideas. First, he identifies the piece described in the poem "A Toccata of Galuppi's" as the Sonata in F Major. Second, he offers a new interpretation of the relationship between words and music in Browning's music poems, understanding of one of the great 19th-century poets. His book is required reading for scholars and students of Browning and those involved in interdisciplinary approaches to literature.

Author Bio

NACHUM SCHOFFMAN is a Senior Lecturer at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. He is the author of From Chords to Simultaneities: Chordal Indeterminancy and the Failure of Serialism (Greenwood Press, 1990), and has contributed to Contrechamps, Current Musicology, and The Journal of Musicological Research, among others.