Sentimentality and Gender in Musically Accompanied Recitations

Musical accompaniment for poetry recitation not only enhanced the dramatic narrative, but it served as what Joanne Dobson has dubbed the “sentimental keepsake,” common to nineteenth-century literature. Accompanied recitations typically featured appropriate romantic or religious topics, depicting nostalgic memories of dancing with lost loves, singing soldiers longing for home, and sufferers’ faith in the face of death. Dances, parlor songs, or hymns were played when they were mentioned in poetic texts. Songs served as an audible expression of grief, loss, memory, and the fragility of human connections, topoi at the core of the sentimental literary tradition. That familiar music recalled the domestic sphere enabled platform appearances by women to be acceptable despite their gender.