Susan McClary is Professor of Music at Case Western University. She is the author of many books, including Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form and Desire and Pleasure in Seventeenth-Century Music, both published by University of California Press. This book, first published in 2004, won the Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society.

"...the book's engaging style, bold premise, and persuasive argument will reward and gratify the reader who possesses a modicum of music literacy and a general interest in Renaissance poetics, regardless of discipline."

• List of ExamplesAcknowledgments1 Introduction: The Cultural Work of the Madrigal2 Night and Deceit: Verdelot’s Machiavelli3 The Desiring Subject, or Subject to Desire: Arcadelt4 Radical Inwardness: Willaert’s Musica nova5 The Prisonhouse of Mode: Cipriano de Rore6 The Coney Island of the Madrigal: Wert and Marenzio7 The Luxury of Solipsism: Gesualdo8 The Mirtillo/Amarilli Controversy: Monteverdi9 I modiAppendix: ExamplesIndex

Susan McClary is Professor of Music at Case Western University. She is the author of many books, including Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form and Desire and Pleasure in Seventeenth-Century Music, both published by University of California Press. This book, first published in 2004, won the Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society.

"...the book's engaging style, bold premise, and persuasive argument will reward and gratify the reader who possesses a modicum of music literacy and a general interest in Renaissance poetics, regardless of discipline."

• List of ExamplesAcknowledgments1 Introduction: The Cultural Work of the Madrigal2 Night and Deceit: Verdelot’s Machiavelli3 The Desiring Subject, or Subject to Desire: Arcadelt4 Radical Inwardness: Willaert’s Musica nova5 The Prisonhouse of Mode: Cipriano de Rore6 The Coney Island of the Madrigal: Wert and Marenzio7 The Luxury of Solipsism: Gesualdo8 The Mirtillo/Amarilli Controversy: Monteverdi9 I modiAppendix: ExamplesIndex

Susan McClary is Professor of Music at Case Western University. She is the author of many books, including Conventional Wisdom: The Content of Musical Form and Desire and Pleasure in Seventeenth-Century Music, both published by University of California Press. This book, first published in 2004, won the Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society.

"...the book's engaging style, bold premise, and persuasive argument will reward and gratify the reader who possesses a modicum of music literacy and a general interest in Renaissance poetics, regardless of discipline."

• List of ExamplesAcknowledgments1 Introduction: The Cultural Work of the Madrigal2 Night and Deceit: Verdelot’s Machiavelli3 The Desiring Subject, or Subject to Desire: Arcadelt4 Radical Inwardness: Willaert’s Musica nova5 The Prisonhouse of Mode: Cipriano de Rore6 The Coney Island of the Madrigal: Wert and Marenzio7 The Luxury of Solipsism: Gesualdo8 The Mirtillo/Amarilli Controversy: Monteverdi9 I modiAppendix: ExamplesIndex