Faucett, Bill F. - John Sullivan Dwight

John Sullivan Dwight (1813-93) was, for much of the nineteenth century, America's leading music critic and an important figure among New England Transcendentalists. This biography charts his relationships with other writers and thinkers, as well as his evolution into a powerful and persuasive writer, while situating his story in its nineteenth century and Transcendental contexts. Dwight's enormous body of essays, reviews, and translations are illuminated in this biography and reveal the indelible influence that his newspaper, Dwight's Journal of Music, had on music criticism--the impacts of which still resonate today.

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
Illustrations
Introduction
PART I: Musica sub rosa
1. A Lineage so Grandly Historic
The Dwights of Massachusetts
Irrepressible Fondness
Dwight's Early Education
Genius and Enterprise
2. Musical Awakenings
Life at Harvard
Musica sub rosa
Harvard Divinity School
3. The World Idealized
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Gardiner's The Music of Nature (1832)
Goethe, Schiller & Carlyle
George Ripley
Early Major Writings
4. Preaching, The Dial, and the HMA
Northampton
The Dial (1840-1844)
The Harvard Musical Association
PART II: The Music of Transcendentalism
5. Dwight at Brook Farm
Gentleman Farmers
The Arts at Brook Farm
The Emerging Journalist
6. The Harbinger, Beethoven, and the End of Brook Farm
The Harbinger
Beethoven Storms Boston
Dwight's Fourieristic Writings
Gone Like a Dream
7. The Maturing Critic
Back in Boston
The Daily Chronotype
Sartain's Magazine
Graham's Magazine
New Prospects
PART III: The World at Arm's Length
8. Dwight's Journal of Music
Founding the Journal
Models and Influences
Early Reception of the Journal
Oliver Ditson
9. Years in Days
Dwight's Grand Tour
Music in Europe
The Great Eastern
10. Dwight on the Issues
Responses to the Civil War
Dwight contra Enterprise
Native Musicians
Music of the Future
Murmurs of a Grander Future
Music Libraries in Boston
11. The End of Dwight's Journal of Music
We Still Live
Howling Wolves
The Journal Folds
CODA
12. The Last Transcendentalist
Life After the Journal
The Perkins Institution for the Blind
Last writings
The Last Transcendentalist
Appendices
1. Dwight's Harvard Forensics & Themes Topics
2. Selected Original Poems by Dwight
3. Musical Repertoire & Guest Artists at Brook Farm
4. Selected Song Translations & Adaptations by Dwight
5. Dwight's Major Original Essays in the Journal (1852-1881)
6. Dwight's European Editorial Correspondences for the Journal (1860-1861)
Abbreviations
John Sullivan Dwight: A Selected Bibliography
Selected Bibliography
Index