Jonathan Goldberg is Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of English at Emory University and the author of several books, most recently Strangers on a Train: A Queer Film Classic. He is also the author of Willa Cather and Others and editor of Queering the Renaissance, both also published by Duke University Press.

"Apropos of his homo-topics, Goldberg writes beautifully, in prose vulnerable and oppositional that elevates academic vernacular to a higher aesthetic plane.... Lucky for us, Goldberg’s decided we can’t have our Hitchcock without our Highsmith, and aren’t they a lovely pair. He writes about music in Hitchcock (something rarely considered) and explores how Highsmith thematizes music in her novels.... [Y]ou will trust Goldberg’s fast-paced, suspenseful ekphrasis and delight in reliving these extraordinary reversals on the page."- Maxe Crandall (Lambda Literary Review) "Goldberg achieves a greater, more nuanced understanding of melodrama’s potential for artistic and philosophical expression, as well as its unique importance for the study of media, gender, race, and sexuality." - Matthew J. M. Grant (Film Criticism) "Students of melodrama have long been drilled in the term’s literal meaning: music + drama. But before Jonathan Goldberg’s Melodrama, few have had the chance to take the music seriously. With a rare combination of musical expertise and critical acumen, Goldberg puts the pieces together in this book. . . . Exceptional. . . ." - Ned Schantz (Crticism) "Melodrama offers a distinctively queer theoretical contribution to the extensive scholarly work on melodrama in film and literary studies. The book is also a form of critical address that seeks to think with works of art the author clearly identifies with and also identifies as practicing a homo-aesthetics that traverses genres, media, and time." - Victoria Hesford (GLQ)

• Preface  ixAcknowledgments  xviiPart I. The Impossible Situation1. Agency and Identity: The Melodrama in Beethoven's Fidelio  32. Identity and Identification: Sirk-Fassbinder-Haynes  23Part II. Melos + Drama3. The Art of Murder: Hitchcock and Highsmith  834. Wildean Aesthetics: From "Paul's Case" to Lucy Gayheart  133Coda  155Notes  169Bibliography  187Index  197

Jonathan Goldberg is Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of English at Emory University and the author of several books, most recently Strangers on a Train: A Queer Film Classic. He is also the author of Willa Cather and Others and editor of Queering the Renaissance, both also published by Duke University Press.

"Apropos of his homo-topics, Goldberg writes beautifully, in prose vulnerable and oppositional that elevates academic vernacular to a higher aesthetic plane.... Lucky for us, Goldberg’s decided we can’t have our Hitchcock without our Highsmith, and aren’t they a lovely pair. He writes about music in Hitchcock (something rarely considered) and explores how Highsmith thematizes music in her novels.... [Y]ou will trust Goldberg’s fast-paced, suspenseful ekphrasis and delight in reliving these extraordinary reversals on the page."- Maxe Crandall (Lambda Literary Review) "Goldberg achieves a greater, more nuanced understanding of melodrama’s potential for artistic and philosophical expression, as well as its unique importance for the study of media, gender, race, and sexuality." - Matthew J. M. Grant (Film Criticism) "Students of melodrama have long been drilled in the term’s literal meaning: music + drama. But before Jonathan Goldberg’s Melodrama, few have had the chance to take the music seriously. With a rare combination of musical expertise and critical acumen, Goldberg puts the pieces together in this book. . . . Exceptional. . . ." - Ned Schantz (Crticism) "Melodrama offers a distinctively queer theoretical contribution to the extensive scholarly work on melodrama in film and literary studies. The book is also a form of critical address that seeks to think with works of art the author clearly identifies with and also identifies as practicing a homo-aesthetics that traverses genres, media, and time." - Victoria Hesford (GLQ)

• Preface  ixAcknowledgments  xviiPart I. The Impossible Situation1. Agency and Identity: The Melodrama in Beethoven's Fidelio  32. Identity and Identification: Sirk-Fassbinder-Haynes  23Part II. Melos + Drama3. The Art of Murder: Hitchcock and Highsmith  834. Wildean Aesthetics: From "Paul's Case" to Lucy Gayheart  133Coda  155Notes  169Bibliography  187Index  197

Jonathan Goldberg is Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of English at Emory University and the author of several books, most recently Strangers on a Train: A Queer Film Classic. He is also the author of Willa Cather and Others and editor of Queering the Renaissance, both also published by Duke University Press.

"Apropos of his homo-topics, Goldberg writes beautifully, in prose vulnerable and oppositional that elevates academic vernacular to a higher aesthetic plane.... Lucky for us, Goldberg’s decided we can’t have our Hitchcock without our Highsmith, and aren’t they a lovely pair. He writes about music in Hitchcock (something rarely considered) and explores how Highsmith thematizes music in her novels.... [Y]ou will trust Goldberg’s fast-paced, suspenseful ekphrasis and delight in reliving these extraordinary reversals on the page."- Maxe Crandall (Lambda Literary Review) "Goldberg achieves a greater, more nuanced understanding of melodrama’s potential for artistic and philosophical expression, as well as its unique importance for the study of media, gender, race, and sexuality." - Matthew J. M. Grant (Film Criticism) "Students of melodrama have long been drilled in the term’s literal meaning: music + drama. But before Jonathan Goldberg’s Melodrama, few have had the chance to take the music seriously. With a rare combination of musical expertise and critical acumen, Goldberg puts the pieces together in this book. . . . Exceptional. . . ." - Ned Schantz (Crticism) "Melodrama offers a distinctively queer theoretical contribution to the extensive scholarly work on melodrama in film and literary studies. The book is also a form of critical address that seeks to think with works of art the author clearly identifies with and also identifies as practicing a homo-aesthetics that traverses genres, media, and time." - Victoria Hesford (GLQ)

• Preface  ixAcknowledgments  xviiPart I. The Impossible Situation1. Agency and Identity: The Melodrama in Beethoven's Fidelio  32. Identity and Identification: Sirk-Fassbinder-Haynes  23Part II. Melos + Drama3. The Art of Murder: Hitchcock and Highsmith  834. Wildean Aesthetics: From "Paul's Case" to Lucy Gayheart  133Coda  155Notes  169Bibliography  187Index  197