An 'Incongruous Bill of Fare': Musical Canons and Copies in George Du Maurier's Trilby

Abstract

ABSTRACT:The repertoire dubbed "an incongruous bill of fare" by the narrator of George Du Maurier's Trilby (1894) consists of pieces spanning the divide between classical and popular music. This article not only explores what is "incongruous" about this repertoire, but reveals the narrator's apparently impartial judgement to be a guiding remark imbricated with the culture industry the novel critiques. In its fantasy of music unbound by distinctions of taste, Trilby celebrates an affective experience in which reproducibility is the keynote. The article expands on Du Maurier's interest in how changing technologies for reproducing art shape hierarchies of value.