Sonic Modernity: Representing Sound in Literature, Culture and the Arts

In this thoughtful and engaging study, Sam Halliday reveals the many roles and forms of sound in modernism.

Drawing on a wealth of texts and thinkers, the book shows the distinctive nature of sonic cultures in modernity. Arguing that these cultures are not reducible to sound alone, the book further shows that these encompass representations of sound in ‘other’ media: especially literature; but also, cinema and painting.

Figures discussed include canonical writers such as Joyce, Richardson, and Woolf; relatively neglected writers such as Henry Roth and Bryher; and a whole host of musicians, artists, and other commentators, including Wagner, Schoenberg, Kandinsky, Adorno, and Benjamin. Conceptually as well as topically diverse, the book engages issues such as city noise and ‘foreign’ accents, representations of sound in ‘silent’ cinema, the relationship of music to language, and the effects of technology on sonic production and reception.