ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book examines the creative work of women musicians from the 1960s to the twenty-first century using the historical insights and conceptual apparatus provided by the study of Romanticism to understand women’s experiences as Romantic authors, artists, and musicians. It explores what the study of Romantic art, music, and literature reveals about women’s experiences of, and resistances to, modernity from the eighteenth century to the present. The book then explains the theoretical and historical basis for writing about contemporary women musicians as Romantics. It also identifies the rolling stone, a trope for the itinerant guitarist, as a central figure in rock and roll and then explores its genealogy. The book compares William Blake’s Moravian upbringing to Patti Smith’s childhood within the Jehovah’s Witnesses to establish parallels between their respective dissenting Protestant traditions.
