The Regulation and Reform of Music Criticism in Nineteenth-Century England


Book Description

Music criticism in England underwent profound change from the 1880s to the 1920s. It gave rise to ‘New criticism’ that aimed to be rational, impartial and intellectually authoritative. It was a break from the criticism of old: the work of the opinionated journalist who wrote descriptive concert reviews with invective, cliché, bias and bombast. Critics such as Ernest Newman (1868–1959), John F. Runciman (1866–1916) and Michel D. Calvocoressi (1877–1944) fostered this new school and wrote extensively of their aspirations for musical criticism in their own times and for the future. This book charts the genesis of this new wave of musical criticism that sought to regulate and reform the profession of music critic. Alongside the establishment of principles, training manuals and schools for critics, hundreds of journal articles and dozens of books were written that encouraged new criticism, which also had a bearing on scholarly writing in biography, aesthetics and history. The Regulation and Reform of Music Criticism in Nineteenth-Century England considers the influence and advocacy of individual critics and the role that institutions, such as the Musical Association and the Musical Times, played in this period of change. The book also explores the impact that French and German writers had on their English counterparts, demonstrating the internationalization of critical thought of the period.




Literary Criticism: A Beginner's Guide


Book Description

Literary criticism is to examine and interpret literature to gain deeper Insights and appreciation for it. It enables the critics to explore things like the writer/poet's style, themes, characters, and the historical or cultural context in which the work was created. Many renowned ports/writers have shared their opinions regarding literature throughout history, from ancient philosophers like Plato to modern pocts/writers. The present book depicts the opinions of such distinguished critics. It has easy to understand style and numerous examples which would make it easier for the students to understand Metary Criticism. It will be helpful for the students of English terature and literary theory and criticism.




J.M. Robertson


Book Description

Published in 1998, J. M. Robertson: Rationalist and Literary Critic is a study of the life of one of the most erudite and prolific critics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Scotsman John MacKinnon Robertson (1856-1933), rationalist and enemy of religion to the core, published over one hundred books and thousands of articles in fields as diverse as sociology, economics, history, anthropology, biblical criticism and literary criticism. This once widely known (and feared!) author was all too quickly forgotten after his death and his work is now seldom read. The aim of this book is to demonstrate that Robertson’s writings and in particular his acute and powerful literary criticism – much respected by T. S. Eliot – have not lost their relevance for late twentieth century readers. Moreover, through the examinations of Robertson’s work in its contextual framework, this study provides a wide-ranging perspective on the late-Victorian literary scene, which perhaps present-day literary historians have not given the detailed attention it deserves.




Overcoming Matthew Arnold


Book Description

Opening the way for a reexamination of Matthew Arnold's unique contributions to ethical criticism, James Walter Caufield emphasizes the central role of philosophical pessimism in Arnold's master tropes of "culture" and "conduct." Caufield uses Arnold's ethics as a lens through which to view key literary and cultural movements of the past 150 years, demonstrating that Arnoldian conduct is grounded in a Victorian ethic of "renouncement," a form of altruism that wholly informs both Arnold's poetry and prose and sets him apart from the many nineteenth-century public moralists. Arnold's thought is situated within a cultural and philosophical context that shows the continuing relevance of "renouncement" to much contemporary ethical reflection, from the political kenosis of Giorgio Agamben and the pensiero debole of Gianni Vattimo, to the ethical criticism of Wayne C. Booth and Martha Nussbaum. In refocusing attention on Arnold's place within the broad history of critical and social thought, Caufield returns the poet and critic to his proper place as a founding father of modern cultural criticism.