While the music lasts

About this book

"While the Music Lasts explores the numerous ways music inhabits the texts of George Sand. Not a repertory of musical references, Powell's study examines the narrative and thematic functions of Sand's musical elements - plot advancement, characterization, thematic development, and ideological investigations. Music also serves, as Powell illustrates, as a vehicle for Sand to probe generic questions concerning the Bildungsroman, fantastic tales, and pastoral novels. At the same time, Sand's musical referencing techniques afford a culturally based method for looking at French society and the need for a humanist reform, all the while exploring feminist statements, narrative strategies, love plots, and questions of communication, language, and nationhood."--BOOK JACKET.