Introduction Chapter 1: The Oxymoronic Self Chapter 2: The Art of Coyness Chapter 3: Maudlin Street Chapter 4: The Light That Never Goes Out Conclusion
The first full-length scholarly study of Morrissey's career - as a writer, performer, and troublemaker.
Gavin Hopps is the Research Council's UK Academic Fellow in the School of Divinity at St. Mary's College, the University of St. Andrews, Scotland.
Mention in The Bookseller
*The Bookseller*
"[This is] the first book to focus on Morissey's lyrical
output."-Publishing News
*Publishing News*
mention in Times higher Education Supplement, 4 June 2009
"Hopps manages to tell Moz's life story in a way that educates even
the most hardcore fans (like me). By comparing the artist to
Romantic poets and incorporating references to film and other art
forms, Hopps examines the former Smiths frontman with a critical
eye and treats him as one of the most talented singer/songwriters
of the last century. (And he is, isn't he?) Dive in, grab a
highlighter and savor the plentiful footnotes."-Whitney Matheson,
USA Today's PopCandy
"Hopps gives [Morrissey] plenty of passionate, well-informed
attention in The Pagaent of His Bleeding Heart, a stylish and
seductive hardcover from Continuum that reflects the love and
devotion of its author to the subject's worldview and musical
expression. This is not a rote biography or analysis of the
shebeens and spielers with collaborators, but an ideal inquiry into
the aesthetic and forces which shape Morrissey's lyrics, persona,
and own influence on worldwide music culture."-KEXP, Seattle,
WA
"The best book-length explication of Morrissey's peculiar genius
I've come across. Acute when it does address the music, it focuses
mostly on M's lyrical and vocal strategies (coyness, flirtation,
caesuras and suggestive trailings away, irruptions of non-sense
such as animalistic/Tourettic/comedic growls, ascent into nonverbal
raptures of yodeling falsetto), then explores how these particular
ways with words announce and embody a particular way of walking
through the world; a life stance and ethic. Hopps managed to
convince me that there's hidden depths and often-missed mischief
secreted within the later work's deceptive slightness and
can't-be-arsed-ness. A majorly illuminating work." - Simon
Reynolds
"Finally, Morrissey's astonishing career as a writer and singer is
treated with the scholarship it deserves. This is an outstanding,
elegant book, of interest not only to Morrissey's fans, but to
anyone interested in the literary capacity of pop music, as well as
its power to enchant, seduce and unnerve" - Michael Bracewell,
author of England Is Mine and The Nineties: When Surface Was
Depth
"It's the best book-length explication of Morrissey's peculiar
genius I've come across." Simon Reynolds
*Simon Reynolds*
"Hopps puts Morrissey, who he describes as pop's greatest
disturbance, in the same tradition as Oscar Wilde and the
Romantics, for none of whom is a simple or literal reading
possible." Reggie Chamberlain-King,
http://iheartau.com/reviews/morrissey-the-pageant-of-his-bleeding-heart-by-dr-gavin-hopps/
"Claiming that Morrissey is the most literary singer in the history
of British popular music, and thus a serious artist working in a
medium widely considered trivial, Hopps (theology, U. of St.
Andrews, Scotland) compares his work to a number of canonical
writers, among them Larkin, Beckett, Wilde, Hardy, and Christina
Rossetti."
http://www.entrepreneur.com/tradejournals/article/205550381.html
Mention in magic, October 2009
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