Music, Nature and Divine Knowledge in England, 1650-1750 - Between the Rational and the Mystical (Hardcover)

During a period of tumultuous change in English political, religious and cultural life, music signified the unspeakable presence of the divine in the world for many. What was the role of music in the early modern subject's sensory experience of divinity? While the English intellectuals Peter Sterry (1613-72), Richard Roach (1662-1730), William Stukeley (1687-1765) and David Hartley (1705-57), have not been remembered for their 'musicking', this book explores how the musical reflections of these individuals expressed alternative and often uncustomary conceptions of God, the world, and the human psyche. Music is always potentially present in their discourse, emerging as a crucial form of mediation between states: exoteric and esoteric, material and spiritual, outer and inner, public and private, rational and mystical. Dixon shows how Sterry, Roach, Stukeley and Hartley's shared belief in truly universal salvation was articulated through a language of music, implying a feminising influence that set these male individuals apart from contemporaries who often strictly emphasised the rational-i.e. the supposedly masculine-aspects of religion. Musical discourse, instead, provided a link to a spiritual plane that brought these intellectuals closer to 'ultimate reality'. Theirs was a discourse firmly rooted in the real existence of contemporary musical practices, both in terms of the forms and styles implied in the writings under discussion and the physical circumstances in which these musical genres were created and performed. Through exploring ways in which the idea of music was employed in written transmission of elite ideas, this book challenges conventional classifications of a seventeenth-century 'Scientific Revolution' and an eighteenth-century 'Enlightenment', defending an alternative narrative of continuity and change across a number of scholarly disciplines, from seventeenth-century English intellectual history and theology, to musicology and the social history of music.

General

Imprint:	The Boydell Press
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Series:	Music in Society and Culture
Release date:	May 2023
Authors:	Tom Dixon
Editors:	Penelope Gouk • Chloë Dixon • Philippe Sarrasin Robichaud
Dimensions:	234 x 156mm (L x W)
Format:	Hardcover - Cloth over boards
Pages:	366
ISBN-13:	978-1-78327-767-4
Categories:	Books > Arts & Architecture > Music > Western music, periods & styles > Baroque music (c 1600 to c 1750) Books > Humanities > History > World history > 1500 to 1750 Books > Humanities > History > British & Irish history > General Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > General > History of religion Books > History > British & Irish history > General Books > History > World history > 1500 to 1750 Books > Religion & Spirituality > General > History of religion Books > Music > Western music, periods & styles > Baroque music (c 1600 to c 1750) Promotions
LSN:	1-78327-767-X
Barcode:	9781783277674

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