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"For not in words can it be spoken": John Sullivan Dwight's transcendental music theory and Herman Melville's Pierre; or, the ambiguities.(Critical Essay)

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From: ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly)
Date: 20050301
Author:McClendon, Aaron

In the inaugural volume of The Harbinger, John Sullivan Dwight, the foremost music critic in the United States, commented that "there is a Musical Movement in this country. Our people are trying to become musical" ("Musical Review" 12). When making that claim in June of 1845, Dwight was correct in noting the proliferation of interest in music that existed throughout the United States during the antebellum era. But more than just recognizing the surge in musicality, Dwight's review was to continue what he had begun to do in his earlier music essays: theorize about the philosophical ...

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