Italian Music in Dakota: The Function of European Musical Theater in U.S. Culture [Paperback]

The intersection between literature and music is a major feature in Anglo-American cultural history. The present volume analyzes the transatlantic migration of European opera and its appropriation by some of the most important literary figures of the United States. The presence of opera in literary texts is always operative and results in artistic outputs possessing more articulated and tense vectors of meaning. The comparative method applied confirms the musical sensitivity of masters such as Poe, Whitman, Melville, Dickinson, Wharton, Cather, reveals the intriguing contradictions in the poetics of Emerson, Thoreau and James and vindicates the role of some minor figures who, through their involvement in the world of musical theater, contributed to the intercultural context.The major focus of this book is to verify the impact of European opera on some major authors (such as Whitman, Melville, Dickinson, James, Santayana, Merrill) who exemplify the function of opera as an instrument of self definition and occasion for the search of deeper truths.Prof Dr Andrea Mariani recently retired from his position as a full professor of Anglo-American Literature at the University of Chieti-Pescara.