Auditory Narrative in the Modernist Novel: Prosody, Music, and the Subversion of Vision in Dorothy Richardson'sPilgrimage

Abstract

This article interrogates the auditory narrative of Dorothy Richardson's multivolume work, Pilgrimage. By drawing on her film column in Close Up, where she champions the silent film with musical accompaniment over the talkie, Frattarola explicates the significance that Richardson places on music and the prosody of speech in her fiction. Often in Pilgrimage, vision and language are depicted as alienating and judgmental, while music and vocal prosody foster connectivity and intimacy. Though audition is not free of prejudice in Pilgrimage, and indeed it is integral to the subjective stream of consciousness, Richardson brings music and voice to the forefront of her narrative to subvert the dominance of vision and language, which she associates with masculinity. Ultimately, Miriam Henderson's pilgrimage to become a writer is fulfilled with her discovery of an “inner eye” that—like prosody, music, and silence—allows her to experience a multivalent way of remembering, knowing, and being.