The Player Piano and the Edwardian Novel

The Player Piano and the Edwardian Novel
Author: Cecilia Bjorken-Nyberg
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 276
Release: 2016-03-03
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1317021215

In her study of music-making in the Edwardian novel, Cecilia Björkén-Nyberg argues that the invention and development of the player piano had a significant effect on the perception, performance and appreciation of music during the period. In contrast to existing devices for producing music mechanically such as the phonograph and gramophone, the player piano granted its operator freedom of individual expression by permitting the performer to modify the tempo. Because the traditional piano was the undisputed altar of domestic and highly gendered music-making, Björkén-Nyberg suggests, the potential for intervention by the mechanical piano's operator had a subversive effect on traditional notions about the status of the musical work itself and about the people who were variously defined by their relationship to it. She examines works by Dorothy Richardson, E.M. Forster, Henry Handel Richardson, Max Beerbohm and Compton Mackenzie, among others, contending that Edwardian fiction with music as a subject undermined the prevalent antithesis, expressed in contemporary music literature, between a nineteenth-century conception of music as a means of transcendence and the increasing mechanisation of music as represented by the player piano. Her timely survey of the player piano in the context of Edwardian commercial and technical discourse draws on a rich array of archival materials to shed new light on the historically conditioned activity of music-making in early twentieth-century fiction.

The Player Piano and the Edwardian Novel

The Player Piano and the Edwardian Novel
Author: Ms Cecilia Björkén-Nyberg
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
Total Pages: 223
Release: 2015-06-28
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1472440005

In her study of music-making in the Edwardian novel, Cecilia Björkén-Nyberg argues that the invention and development of the player piano had a significant effect on the perception, performance and appreciation of music during the period. In contrast to existing devices for producing music mechanically such as the phonograph and gramophone, the player piano granted its operator freedom of individual expression by permitting the performer to modify the tempo. Because the traditional piano was the undisputed altar of domestic and highly gendered music-making, Björkén-Nyberg suggests, the potential for intervention by the mechanical piano's operator had a subversive effect on traditional notions about the status of the musical work itself and about the people who were variously defined by their relationship to it. She examines works by Dorothy Richardson, E.M. Forster, Henry Handel Richardson, Max Beerbohm and Compton Mackenzie, among others, contending that Edwardian fiction with music as a subject undermined the prevalent antithesis, expressed in contemporary music literature, between a nineteenth-century conception of music as a means of transcendence and the increasing mechanisation of music as represented by the player piano. Her timely survey of the player piano in the context of Edwardian commercial and technical discourse draws on a rich array of archival materials to shed new light on the historically conditioned activity of music-making in early twentieth-century fiction.

International Journal of Language Studies (IJLS) Ð volume 12(4)

International Journal of Language Studies (IJLS) Ð volume 12(4)
Author: Mohammad Ali Salmani Nodoushan
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 126
Release: 2018-10-10
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0359147046

Papers in this special issue on Figurative Language: (1) Cecilia BJÖRKÉN-NYBERG: Vocalising motherhood: The metaphorical conceptualisation of voice in listener responses to The girl on the train by Paula Hawkins (pp. 1-28); (2) Danielle CUDMORE: Prophet, poet, seer, skald: Poetic diction in Merlínusspá (pp. 29-60); (3) Kristina HILDEBRAND: "As fayre an handid man" Malory's figurative language (pp. 61-74); (4) Birgitta SVENSSON: The development of figurative competence in narrative writing: A longitudinal case study (pp. 75-102); (5) Monica KARLSSON: Book Review (pp. 103-106); (6) Keith ALLAN: Book Review (pp. 107-113).

Edwardian Fiction

Edwardian Fiction
Author: Jefferson Hunter
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 1982
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

Player Piano

Player Piano
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: Dial Press
Total Pages: 353
Release: 2009-09-30
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0307568083

“A funny, savage appraisal of a totally automated American society of the future.”—San Francisco Chronicle Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut—wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality. Praise for Player Piano “An exuberant, crackling style . . . Vonnegut is a black humorist, fantasist and satirist, a man disposed to deep and comic reflection on the human dilemma.”—Life “His black logic . . . gives us something to laugh about and much to fear.”—The New York Times Book Review

Fiction 100

Fiction 100
Author: James H. Pickering
Publisher:
Total Pages: 1110
Release: 1978
Genre: Fiction
ISBN:

An international collection of 100 short stories including "classics" and a selection of modern or lesser-known titles.

The New York Times Book Review

The New York Times Book Review
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 1146
Release: 1980
Genre: Books
ISBN:

Presents extended reviews of noteworthy books, short reviews, essays and articles on topics and trends in publishing, literature, culture and the arts. Includes lists of best sellers (hardcover and paperback).