The marvellous, a key concept in literary debates at the turn of the seventeenth century, involved sensory and perspectival transformation, a rhetoric built on the unexpected, contradictory, and thought-provoking. The composer Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) created a new practice in which the expressive materials of music and poetry were placed in concert. This innovative new study of Monteverdi's literary personality integrates musical and poetic analysis to create an approach to text-music relations that addresses scholars of both literature and music. It illuminates how experiments in language and perception at the turn of the seventeenth century were influenced and informed by the work of musicians of that era. Giles provides a new perspective on the music and poetry of Monteverdi's madrigals through the poetics of the marvellous. In his madrigals, Monteverdi created a reciprocity between poetry and music which encouraged audiences to contemplate their interactions, and, consequently, to listen differently.

Explores the path-breaking interaction between language and music in Monteverdi's madrigals through the provocative poetics of the marvellous.

About the Author
Roseen Giles is Assistant Professor of Music at Duke University. She is a specialist in the music of Claudio Monteverdi, and the author of numerous essays on early modern musical culture and the histories of music and literature.


Book Information
ISBN 9781009355353
Author Roseen Giles
Format Hardback
Page Count 320
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 680g
Dimensions(mm) 251mm * 177mm * 22mm