Author: Shannon Draucker, English Department, Siena University - Personal Website

Contents:

	List of Illustrations (p. ix)
	Acknowledgments (p. xi)
	Introduction The Erotic Symphony (p. 1)
		Acoustical Readings (p. 5)
		Listening In: Sound, Sensation, and Science in Victorian Studies (p. 9)
			Reembodying Victorian Sound Studies (p. 9)
			The Feminist and Queer Uses of Acoustical Science (p. 11)
		Hearing New Things: New Directions for Music-Literature Studies (p. 12)
			Music Beyond Metaphor (p. 12)
			Queering the Concert Hall (p. 14)
		Good Vibrations: Expanding the Erotic in Victorian Studies (p. 15)
		Program Notes: Plan of the Book (p. 17)
	Part One: Sounds and Bodies
	Chapter One Hearing, Touching, Feeling Sound: Acoustical Science in Nineteenth-Century Britain (p. 25)
		Physical Acoustics (p. 27)
		Physiological Acoustics (p. 31)
		“Not Mere Vibrations”: Aesthetic Debates (p. 37)
		Acoustical Science in Victorian Culture (p. 42)
	Part Two: Genders
	Chapter Two Bare Arms and Quivering Nerves: The “Lady Violinist” Novels of Mary Augusta Ward and M. E. Francis (p. 51)
		The “Lady Violinist” in Victorian Literature (p. 53)
		“Beyond Her Muscular Power”: Female Violinists in Victorian England (p. 55)
		Brahms in the Blood: Robert Elsmere (p. 62)
		“Itching” to Be Heard: The Duenna of a Genius (p. 69)
		Physiological Acoustics and Feminist Politics (p. 77)
	Chapter Three Cross-Dressing Violinists and Music/Gender Performance in The Heavenly Twins and The Violin-Player (p. 79)
		“The Difference That Dress Makes”: Contingent Virtuosity in The Heavenly Twins (p. 84)
		“A Real Genius”: Triumphant Musicality in The Violin-Player (p. 91)
		“Without Regard to Sex” (p. 98)
	Part Three: Sexualities
	Chapter Four Dangerous Vibrations: Musical Rape in George Eliot and Thomas Hardy (p. 101)
		“In Spite of Her Resistance”: The Mill on the Floss (p. 107)
		“Excruciating Spasms”: Desperate Remedies and “The Fiddler of the Reels” (p. 115)
	Chapter Five Orgasm in the Orchestra Box: Teleny’s Musical Pornography (p. 127)
		“Natural Tastes”: Teleny’s Defense of Same-Sex Desire (p. 133)
		Aural Sex: Teleny’s Queer Erotics (p. 141)
	Part Four: Intimacies
	Chapter Six Fiddle Feelings: Human-Instrument Intimacies in Dickens, Eliot, Trollope, and Hardy (p. 147)
		“Corporeal Co-Dependence”: Human-Instrument Relations in Victorian Acoustical Science (p. 152)
		Sympathetic Kinship: George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss (p. 157)
		Cello Friendship: Anthony Trollope’s The Warden (p. 160)
		Passioned Pulsings: Thomas Hardy’s “Haunting Fingers” (p. 163)
		Self-Playing Instruments (p. 166)
	Chapter Seven Musical Hauntings and Otherworldly Erotics in The Lost Stradivarius and “A Wicked Voice” (p. 169)
		“Acoustical Affinities”: The Lost Stradivarius (p. 174)
		The Murmur of the Castrato: “A Wicked Voice” (p. 180)
		Is the Concert Hall Haunted? (p. 186)
	Coda Re-vitalizing Contemporary Classical Music (p. 189)
	Notes (p. 199)
	Bibliography (p. 245)
	Index (p. 271)

Description: »Can the concert hall be as erotic as the bedroom? Many Victorian writers believed so. In the mid-nineteenth century, acoustical scientists such as Hermann von Helmholtz and John Tyndall described music as a set of physical vibrations that tickled the ear, excited the nerves, and precipitated muscular convulsions. In turn, writers-from canonical figures such as George Eliot and Thomas Hardy, to New Women novelists like Sarah Grand and Bertha Thomas, to anonymous authors of underground pornography-depicted bodily sensations and experiences in unusually explicit ways. These writers used scenes of music listening and performance to intervene in urgent conversations about gender and sexuality and explore issues of agency, pleasure, violence, desire, and kinship. Sounding Bodies shows how both classical music and Victorian literature, while often considered bastions of conservatism and repression, represented powerful sites for feminist and queer politics.« (Source: State University of New York Press)

Reviews:
- McGuire, Riley. Victoriographies: A Journal of the Long Nineteenth Century 16(2) (July 2026): 194–196. - Full Text: Edingburgh University Press (Free Access)
- Weybright, Elizabeth. Review 19 (July 9, 2025). - Full Text: Review 19 (Free Access)

Wikipedia: History of Europe: History of England / Victorian era | Literature: English literature / George Eliot, Thomas Hardy | Sex and the law: Rape / Rape in England