Poe and the Idea of Music: Failure, Transcendence, and Dark Romanticism
Charity McAdams · Medical Entomology and Zoology · 2017
Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Is This Divine? No, This is the Voice of a Woman. Madame Malibran: Very Genius of Music The Spectacles: In Imitation of Malibran Alchemy of Unreason: Well and Strenuously Sung! 2 Another Kind of Musician Altogether The Fall of the House of Usher: Guitar and the Ballad Case of the Ballad Ulalume: Faery Ballet Indefinitiveness: True Musical Expression Annabel Lee: Sounding Sea The Haunted Palace: Spirits Moving Musically 3 An Almost Magical Melody Ligeia: Siren Who Never Sings 4 Wantonest Singing Birds Poems as Songs in Language, Aim, and Purpose Ventum Textilem: Veil of the Soul Mere Words: Birdsong Fanny: Wild Death Song, Sweet and Clear Romance: Unless It Trembled with the Strings Nameless Here For Evermore: To Sing Well is to Avoid Naming 5 Starry Choir (And Other Listening Things) Music of the Spheres: Music, in Our Own More Limited Sense of the Word Al Aaraaf: Music of the Passion-Hearted Israfel: Sweetest Voice of All God's Creatures Power of Words: Naiad Voice that Addresses Them From Below 6 But Gradually my Songs They Ceased The Cask of Amontillado: Conical Cap and Bells The Bells: What a World of Solemn Thought Their Monody Compels A Paean: Requiem for the Loveliest Dead The Masque of the Red Death: Music Swells, and the Dreams Live, and Writhe Conclusion Appendix An Inherited Musical Talent Idea without Music: Decontextualizing Poe 'The Rational Agent of Enchantment Itself': Absolute Music and the Music of the Spheres Bibliography