Abstract

Early modern speculative music played a key role in power politics and led to social stratification along socioeconomic boundaries. This was due in part to the neoclassical humanist interest in teachings of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, and Cicero, among others, but Plato and Aristotle in particular stress the need for musically-related stratification. The evolution of early modern literary manifestations of this idea parallels that of long-accepted philosophical changes, changing decidedly after the Restoration. The ways in which various writers portray ideas about musical power and its relationship to social position complicates sociopolitical characterization of authors of courtesy books as well as of drama, poetry, and epic