Richard Elliott is Senior Lecturer in Music at Newcastle University, UK. His current research focuses on the representations of time, age and experience in popular music as well as the relationship between music and materiality. He is the author of the books Fado and the Place of Longing (2010), Nina Simone (2013) and The Late Voice (2015).
In The Sound of Nonsense, Richard Elliott highlights the importance of sound in understanding the 'nonsense' of writers such as Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, James Joyce and Mervyn Peake, before connecting this noisy writing to works which engage more directly with sound, including sound poetry, experimental music and pop. By emphasising sonic factors, Elliott makes new and fascinating connections between a wide range of artistic examples to ultimately build a case for the importance of sound in creating, maintaining and disrupting meaning.
Introduction
1: The Sound of Nonsense
2: The Sound of the Page
3: Silly Noises
4: Pop Hearts Nonsense
Conclusion
Bibliography
Discography
Videography