Music was a subject of considerable debate during the Renaissance. The notion that music could be interpreted in a meaningful way clashed regularly with evidence that music was in fact profoundly promiscuous in its application and effects. Subsequently, much writing in the period reflects a desire to ward off music's illegibility rather than come to terms with its actual effects. In Broken Harmony Joseph M. Ortiz revises our understanding of music's relationship to language in Renaissance England. In the process he shows the degree to which discussions of music were ideologically and politically charged.

Offering a historically nuanced account of the early modern debate over music, along with close readings of several of Shakespeare's plays (including Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, The Tempest, and The Winter's Tale) and Milton's A Maske, Ortiz challenges the consensus that music's affinity with poetry was widely accepted, or even desired, by Renaissance poets. Shakespeare more than any other early modern poet exposed the fault lines in the debate about music's function in art, repeatedly staging disruptive scenes of music that expose an underlying struggle between textual and sensuous authorities. Such musical interventions in textual experiences highlight the significance of sound as an aesthetic and sensory experience independent of any narrative function.

About the Author

Joseph M. Ortiz is Assistant Professor of English at the State University of New York, The College at Brockport.

Reviews

Ortiz's goal is to reexamine all the concepts related to and about music in Renaissance England and specifically to argue that Shakespeare challenges many of the concepts that were carried over from medieval notions and viewpoints.... It is a fascinating approach and historical perspective that has been lost on previous scholarship in this area.... This is an important contribution to musicological, historical, and Shakespearean studies.

-- Bradford Lee Eden * Sixteenth Century Journal *



Book Information
ISBN 9780801449314
Author Joseph M. Ortiz
Format Hardback
Page Count 280
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 907g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 155mm * 24mm