Whether to weather the weather

Abstract

My enduring interest as an academic and professional musician lies in investigating the interface between Literature and Music. My paper, entitled ‘Whether to weather the Weather’ seeks to bridge these two wonderful disciplines. Starting with the literary, I investigate the effect of inclement weather on character, plot, and mood, in works by Dickens, Tennyson, Sitwell, Woolf, Wyndham Lewis, Lawrence, Auden, and others. Whizzing with remarkable speed over these freezing landscapes and seascapes, literature has strong affinities to music. It is a quality which, like mercy, comes down to the poet and the musician from Heaven, democratically beautifying fair and foul, filling even the ‘scroogiest’ of hearts with benevolence and generosity.