music and women's rights

Nancy Fredricks on music in Melville's Pierre (1852):

Pierre's enthusiasm for that which lies beyond representation is figured in his devotion to the marginalized Isabel.  …

The poet Pierre’s devotion to Isabel the musician allegorizes a valorization of the nonrepresentational art of music by the literary artist.  In return for Pierre’s devotion, Isabel bestows on him “blessings that are imageless to all mortal fancying.”  “Not mere sounds of common words,” she tells him, “but inmost tones of my heart’s deepest melodies should now be audible to thee.”  When Isabel sings and plays her guitar, Pierre responds by valorizing music over language:  “Any—all words are thine, words and worlds with all their containings shall be slaves to thee.”  “For where the deepest words end,” the narrator tells us, “there music begins with its supersensuous and all-confounding intimations.”

... Isabel’s status as an illegitimate, orphaned, impoverished woman in a patriarchal society situates her on the margins or frame of representation….By valorizing music in Pierre, Melville gives voice to those excluded from the structures of representation.  
(Melville's Art of Democracy)

Meanwhile, in prairie dialogues with his Imaginary Friend, the "Captain of U. S. Dragoons" eloquently advocates for "downtrodden woman" (June 1852) and valorizes music as "the divine art" (May 1853).

 C. —"Labour and depravity are our curse: but blessings too are the high faculties of the soul: among which are poetic fancies,— perception of the beautiful, —romantic yearnings, which were given for cultivation; they elevate man's mind, and

 'Make his heart a spirit-' 

"In cherishing these heaven-descended attributes, we can oft forget that we are animals too.

"Thus Music, whose source and power are in these faculties, is the divine art. If art it be, since the first words spoken by woman upon earth,—as often now,—were rapturous music!"

"Scenes Beyond the Western Border," May 1853
and, with significant revisions, Scenes and Adventures in the Army

 I. F. " Heaven help you of your mood! I give it up."

C. " My mood? I was never in a more sober mood; I feel as cool and practical as any downtrodden woman."

I. F. "Then your antitheses are rather overpowering!"

C. "Yes, he that will follow where truth may lead, may ever startle; I am still at my theme. I attack this semi-civilization, which halts when woman is only no longer like these brutish squaws; and with the help of the faithful drudge herself, builds up a conventional system which defies the powers of human reason; nay, with an infernal perversity, resists the very light of heaven.  But it is a law that we ever seek happiness. And it is this free desert air alone, that emboldens me in the search, to question the dogmas which society holds so precious."

"Scenes Beyond the Western Border," June 1852;
and Scenes and Adventures in the Army