Literary Modernism and Musical Aesthetics

This book examines the theory and the practice of music, in relation to the writing of four major modernist figures: Walter Pater, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein. Brad Bucknell examines modernist writers' relationship and engagement with music, from theories about music and musical-literary relations to the composition of music and libretti. Bucknell's study investigates how music, as a discrete artistic mode of expression, and a recurring theme in the work of these four writers, reveals the intricate and varied nature of the modernist project.