1st Edition

Beyond the Sound Barrier The Jazz Controversy in Twentieth-Century American Fiction

By Kristin K Henson Copyright 2003
    168 Pages
    by Routledge

    168 Pages
    by Routledge

    Beyond the Sound Barrier examines twentieth-century fictional representations of popular music-particularly jazz-in the fiction of James Weldon Johnson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Langston Hughes, and Toni Morrison. Kristin K. Henson argues that an analysis of musical tropes in the work of these four authors suggests that cultural "mixing" constitutes one of the central preoccupations of modernist literature. Valuable for any reader interested in the intersections between American literature and the history of American popular music, Henson situates the literary use of popular music as a culturally amalgamated, boundary-crossing form of expression that reflects and defines modern American identities.

    Introduction Chapter One: A sympathetic, singing instrument: Musical Tropes and Cultural Fusion in James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man Chapter Two: A big sensation: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jazz Anxiety Chapter Three: Musical Range: Langston Hughes's The Ways of White Folks Chapter Four: Only in the head of a musician: The Powers of Music in Toni Morrison's jazz Afterword Works Cited Index

    Biography

    Kristin K. Henson