AustLit

'This article examines some of the rich and complex ways in which music plays an integral role in the works of Patrick White. While there is an increasing body of writings on analogies between music and fiction, there is as yet no comprehensive study of the extensive use of music in Australian poetry and fiction, and none written from the perspective of a musicologist. White belongs to a strong tradition of writers in Australia who are or were in various senses musical; that is, either they make specific references to pieces of music in their writing, they deploy musical structures and techniques, or the way in which they write is inherently musical' (p. 23).