Simon Bate (KCL) - 2014-15 Students
simon.bate@kcl.ac.uk

Listening to literature: Sound and its representations in English

My project examines from a musicological perspective the presence of sound in English literature of the late Middle Ages. Working jointly in the Music and English departments, I seek to compare the means by which the aural dimension is represented in a literary setting with its representation in musical sources of a similar historical context, questioning how such a comparison can inflect our understanding of the meanings of sound within the culture. I am currently focusing on vernacular drama, and a geographical area in the north west of England, but plan to extend the investigation to forms of literature less explicitly performative in nature.