Music as Satire in Aldous Huxley's Utopian Works

Heike Sieger

• Publisher: LIT Verlag
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9783643968616
• Subtopic: English Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

This study explores the satirical function of music in Aldous Huxley's (anti-)utopian novels Brave New World, Ape and Essence, and Island, as well as in his stage adaptations of two of these works: "Brave New World: A Musical Comedy" and "Ape and Essence—A Play". Huxley—himself musically educated and active as a music critic for The Weekly Westminster Gazette in the early 1920s—frequently incorporated his personal likes and dislikes of certain composers and musical styles into his texts. The present analysis builds upon earlier criticism that examined Huxley's general use of music in his works, but it goes beyond such studies by focusing on the satirical effect of musical elements such as references to composers and their works in his (anti-) utopian fiction: it bridges a scholarly gap between studies focusing on Huxley the satirist and those examining Huxley the music afficionado. Heike Sieger graduated from Münster University, Germany, with an M. A. in English, German and Russian Literature in 2006. Her thesis, in which Aldous Huxley played a central role, dealt with "Literary Representations of Drug Experiences in America's 1950s–1970s." Afterwards, she worked as a journalist for a German wedding magazine for eight years before returning to literary studies in 2014. In 2023, she obtained her PhD. During the past decade, she published various essays on Aldous Huxley, mostly in Aldous Huxley Annual. Since 2024, she has been working as a speaker for Evangelisches Studienwerk e. V., one of the 13 big German organizations providing scholarships for talented students.

Table of contents

• Cover
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• I. SATIRE AND MUSIC IN HUXLEY’S UTOPIAS
• II. BRAVE NEW WORLD AND ITS MUSICAL ADAPTATIONS
• III. APE AND ESSENCE
• IV. ISLAND
• V. VOCAL CONSPICUITIES