‘Music horrible and unreal’: music, its language, and First World War fiction

Frayn, Andrew

Abstract

Narratives about the First World War often claimed that the physical experience of warfare was incommunicable to those who had not fought. Indeed, in the decade after the war much paper and ink was devoted to this aporia. In this paper I argue that, in the apparent absence of a language with which to describe extreme or otherwise taboo experiences, music, sound, and its terminology is used to represent viscerally the unspeakable. However, this symbolic rendering of did not save two key texts which criticised the war from censure.

Despised and Rejected (1918), written by Rose Laure Allatini and published under the pseudonym A. T. Fitzroy, discusses the activities of a group of pacifists and anti-war activists. It was banned almost five months after publication for hindering the war effort. The pacifist group is comprised of people who are othered in multiple ways, particularly homosexuality and intermediacy. Both pacifism and homosexuality challenge the violence of idealised masculinity, and so cannot be spoken directly in wartime, particularly in mid-1918 when flagging morale needed to be bolstered. The protagonist, Dennis, is a composer, and he uses music to communicate with Alan, the object of his affections; during the war his compositions also shift from harmony to a modern, dissonant clamour.

Richard Aldington’s Death of a Hero (1929), published at the height of the War Books Boom, was expurgated in order not to be banned, particularly for its satire on the Victorians. Aldington heads each section of the novel with musical terminology for pace, suggesting a symphonic progression and punning on military vocabulary in moving from the march tempo of allegro to adagio – at ease. In contrast to the slowing pace, the novel increases in volume to a barely tolerable cacophony, the vibrations of the sound offering a sense of the physicality of warfare.

These texts, published a decade apart, demonstrate the enduring efficacy of music as a device for representing experiences which push the limits of verbal, linguistic representation.

Citation

Frayn, A. (2014, August). ‘Music horrible and unreal’: music, its language, and First World War fiction. Paper presented at The Music of War: 1914–1918, British Library, London

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: The Music of War: 1914–1918
• Start Date: Aug 29, 2014
• End Date: Aug 31, 2014
• Deposit Date: Apr 26, 2023