"Angelic Airs, Subversive Songs focuses on the novels of Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy, who present complex engagements with some of the musical genres most privileged by Victorian society: folk songs, religious hymns, pastoral operas, and concert music.".

"Professor Clapp-Itnyre recovers the pervasive ambiguities of the Victorian musical period, ambiguities typically overlooked by both literary scholars and musicologists. To the literary critic and cultural historian, the study demonstrates the necessity of further exploring the complete aesthetic climate behind some of the Victorian period's most powerful literary works.

To the feminist scholar and the musicologist, it reveals the complexities of music as both an oppressive cultural force and an expressive, creative outlet for women."--BOOK JACKET.