Music, Morals, and the Body

In this monograph Jukka Sarjala explores a long neglected issue in music historiography, the history of passions and emotions. The study concentrates on the philosophy of music in early modern Turku, a Protestant town in the Baltic Sea region. The author suggests that the doctrine of affects, the basic discourse on music of the period, did not constitute itself as an isolated aesthetic system, nor as the hidden wisdom of professional musicians. Rather, it formed part of political theory and moral philosophy.