Agnew, Vanessa - Enlightenment Orpheus

The Enlightenment saw a critical engagement with the ancient idea that music carries certain powers - it heals and pacifies, civilizes and educates. Yet this interest in musical utility seems to conflict with larger notions of aesthetic autonomy that emerged at the same time. In Enlightenment Orpheus, Vanessa Agnew examines this apparent conflict, and provocatively questions the notion of an aesthetic-philosophical break between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

---

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
List of Illustrations
Introduction
I. Argonaut Orpheus
II. Music's Empire
III. Anti-Orpheus
Conclusion
Notes

Series	New Cultural History of Music