After the Lovedeath

In this brilliant extended essay, Lawrence Kramer once again brings his formidable skills as a literary critic and musicologist to bear on nineteenth-century culture. . . . As always, Kramer surprises his readers with bold new insights; he compels us to return to poems, stories, and sonatas we thought we knew.-Susan McClary, author of Feminine EndingsThis book makes its readers understand the stakes of a crucial debate while itself raising that debate to a higher stage. Its powerful, original vision of gender informs remarkable readings of individual texts. The style, uniquely personal and invariably effective, often reaches a level of eloquence rare in academic prose. Kramer has a distinctive voice and uses it to dramatic effect.-Sandy Petrey, author of Speech Acts and Literary TheoryEnormously important. . . . [This book] takes a crucial next step from previous cultural-critical work. Its determination to speak directly to the problem of sexual violence by way of certain cultural products-rather than the other way around, as countless previous authors have done-is a weird and wonderful gesture. I wouldn't have thought it could be done, but I find quite persuasive Kramer's demonstration that readings like these can authorize such a diagnosis.-Ruth A. Solie, editor of Musicology and Difference