Author: William Davenport Adams

Publisher:

Published: 2020-03-06

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

THE original conception of this volume dates back a good many years -- namely, to my first acquaintance with Robert Bell's "Songs from the Dramatists". "Why," I said to myself, "has no one brought together the 'Songs from the Novelists'?" No doubt, in the latter case, the field is not so wide as in the former. Our plays of importance, I should say, largely out-number our novels and romances of importance; and, even if that were not so, songs are naturally more common in drama than in fiction. The lyric opportunities of the dramatist are greater than those of the imaginative prose-writer. The former can introduce a song almost where he pleases: the latter has his story to tell, his scenery to describe; and, except in romance, the occasions when dialogue can be broken up by vocal performances are, of necessity, not numerous. Nevertheless, it is noticeable how frequent, after all, are the poetic or rhythmic interludes created by our novelists and Romanists. They occur in the least likely places. From certain of our celebrated fictionists such interludes were, in a sense, to be expected. When a novelist is also a poet -- when he has published poems separately from his novels -- it is not to be wondered at that he should be found "freshening the dusty road" of narrative with "babbling rills of song." Thus, when we remember the sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney, we are not surprised to find songs in his "Arcadia" when we think of "Marmion" and "The Lady of the Lake", we are not astonished to discover lyrics scattered over the broad surface of the "Waverley" series; "King Arthur" and "The Lost Tales of Miletus" prepare us for the verse in "The Last Days of Pompeii" and "Kenelm Chillingly"; "The Saint's Tragedy" and "Andromeda" account, in this way, for the songs in "The Water Babies"; from the author of "The Inn of Strange Meetings" come, naturally, the lyrics in "Frances", and the rest; and, if there were no verse in the novels and romances of such poets as George MacDonald and George Meredith, the fact would surely be remarkable....

Download or read book Songs From the Novelists From Elizabeth to Victoria written by William Davenport Adams and published by . This book was released on 2020-03-06 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE original conception of this volume dates back a good many years -- namely, to my first acquaintance with Robert Bell's "Songs from the Dramatists". "Why," I said to myself, "has no one brought together the 'Songs from the Novelists'?" No doubt, in the latter case, the field is not so wide as in the former. Our plays of importance, I should say, largely out-number our novels and romances of importance; and, even if that were not so, songs are naturally more common in drama than in fiction. The lyric opportunities of the dramatist are greater than those of the imaginative prose-writer. The former can introduce a song almost where he pleases: the latter has his story to tell, his scenery to describe; and, except in romance, the occasions when dialogue can be broken up by vocal performances are, of necessity, not numerous. Nevertheless, it is noticeable how frequent, after all, are the poetic or rhythmic interludes created by our novelists and Romanists. They occur in the least likely places. From certain of our celebrated fictionists such interludes were, in a sense, to be expected. When a novelist is also a poet -- when he has published poems separately from his novels -- it is not to be wondered at that he should be found "freshening the dusty road" of narrative with "babbling rills of song." Thus, when we remember the sonnets of Sir Philip Sidney, we are not surprised to find songs in his "Arcadia" when we think of "Marmion" and "The Lady of the Lake", we are not astonished to discover lyrics scattered over the broad surface of the "Waverley" series; "King Arthur" and "The Lost Tales of Miletus" prepare us for the verse in "The Last Days of Pompeii" and "Kenelm Chillingly"; "The Saint's Tragedy" and "Andromeda" account, in this way, for the songs in "The Water Babies"; from the author of "The Inn of Strange Meetings" come, naturally, the lyrics in "Frances", and the rest; and, if there were no verse in the novels and romances of such poets as George MacDonald and George Meredith, the fact would surely be remarkable....