This book is a new and exciting interdisciplinary resource which integrates the worlds of music and literature. It is the first primary and secondary source collection of its kind to focus on the relationships between words and music, and between musical and verbal forms. Featured along with key writings on music, speech and their relationship are previously unpublished articles and interview transcripts, and a new translation of an extract from Wagner’s theoretical works.

Designed for undergraduate students, the book uniquely:

- examines a historically and geographically diverse selection of genres from a variety of academic perspectives

- explores issues of language, musical form, performance, song, narrative, sound and action, and identity

- enables readers to connect with different histories, cultures and technologies via the linkages between musical and literary texts.

This anthology is an important contribution to the growing field of music and literature studies, and an engaging read for anyone interested in a culturally rich musical and literary inheritance.