Kaleidophonic Modernity

Abstract

Kaleidophonic Modernity examines hidden audiovisual interplay in the imaginations of writers, artists, inventors, and scientists in the nineteenth century. With a focus on both canonical figures of urban modernity, namely Edgar Allan Poe, Charles Baudelaire, and Walt Whitman, and more obscure figures, namely Charles Cros and Nina de Villard, the book provides a transatlantic comparative perspective on mid-nineteenth century mediascapes and the prehistory of mechanical sound recording technologies. At the same time, the book offers fresh insights into the aesthetics of sound recording, Franco-American literary exchange, Poe’s aesthetic and intellectual legacy, the sounds of modern cities and technologies, and the overlooked genealogy of the kind of acoustical experimentation found in such movements as Dada, Futurism, and the sound art of today. Ultimately, the book establishes bridges between literary studies, auditory culture studies, and visual culture studies of the nineteenth century.