Description
Book SynopsisMusic in the Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates and analyzes the ways in which Fitzgerald integrated music with literature through his entire writing career, from his early Triangle Club lyrics to his later Hollywood screenplays, but most significantly in the novels and short stories for which he is most famous. Growing up during the first resonating outbursts of popular music—the ragtime era and the jazz age—Fitzgerald filled his fiction with popular songs to express the topics, mores, and energy of his times. As the years passed from World War I to the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, these songs brought to his work the varying effects that they had on a mass society: stimulation, romance, nostalgia, and consolation. The songs also contributed to the modernist traits of his style by creating a mixed-media texture and allusive openings to shows or movies in which the songs appeared. Although popular culture seemed appealing, Fitzgerald constantly worried about how it affected the stature of his works. He carefully distinguished between his popular short stories and his classic novels. But just as songs incorporated popular culture into his works, so other musical qualities, which came to him from classical music by means of poetry, furnished imagery, and structure that enhanced the classic value of his novels. Even from his later work on screenplays, which he considered a low type of writing, Fitzgerald learned to transform the art and industry of film into fitting material for what could have been his last classic novel, and music provided both popular and classical elements to advance this effort. Fitzgerald experienced and appreciated the lively new music of his time. In his writing he preserved, organized, and interpreted it for future generations.
Trade ReviewBerret’s engaging book shows just how rewarding such musical excavation can be when combined with a cultural studies approach. It functions as a highly worthwhile entry point for new scholars of Fitzgerald, and rewards existing scholars’ attention. It is essential reading for anyone who is interested in the multifaceted, modernist traits of Fitzgerald’s style, and his personal struggles between his identity as a Post author and his novel-writing career. Berret seeks to enable Fitzgerald’s music to be heard, and ‘to have a distinct and meaningful voice in the literary text.' In this endeavor, he has certainly succeeded. * Resources for American Literary Study *
Table of ContentsContents Introduction Chapter One: Lyrics and Librettos The Triangle Shows The Ragtime Era The Triangle Shows Chapter Two: Music, Poetry, and the Novel This Side of Paradise Romantic Music Preparatory to the Great Adventure The End of Summer Chapter Three: Books and Magazines Short Stories I Flappers and Philosophers The Jazz Age Sad Young Men Chapter Four: From Novel to Musical Comedy The Beautiful and Damned and The Vegetable Lyric Tenor Ragtime Kid Moral Decline From President to Postman Chapter Five: Popular Classic The Great Gatsby Musical Sounds Jazz History of the World The Sheik of Araby The Love Nest and Ain’t We Got Fun Three O’Clock in the Morning Mendelssohn’s Wedding March Beale Street Blues The Rosary Chapter Six: Romance and Perfection Short Stories II Scandal Detective Emotional Bankrupt Chronic Affection Chapter Seven: Pathology and Decline Tender Is the Night Carnival of Affection Lost Youth Fading Empire Chapter Eight: Accompaniments and Soundtracks Hollywood Writings and The Last Tycoon Screenplays Short Stories The Last Tycoon Conclusion Works Cited Books and Articles Sheet Music, Collections, Web Recordings Musical Comedies, Operas, Musical Films, and Longer Pieces About the Author
