Saint Cecilia is, to the Catholic Church, the patron saint of music. But to feminist musicologists Suan Cook and Judy Tsou, she is instead the "patronized" saint of music, a symbol of the limited role to which women have been traditionally confined in Western music. In her novel <em>Cecilia,</em> however, Frances Burney works to reclaim the figure of the female musician from the periphery of artistic relevance. Burney's music-loving protagonist Cecilia serves as a vehicle to explore a number of eighteenth-century concerns, most notably emerging class conflicts and the tension between a women's personal investment in art and the male, public world that devalues that art. Burney situates her heroine paradoxically both inside and apart from patriarchal society; it is Cecilia's music that allows her to stand on the brink. Burney certainly acknowledges the ways in which music functions as a tool of patriarchy, rendering women submissive. However, in re-visioning Saint Cecilia as simply Cecilia,, she also quietly suggests the possibility of change, a suggestion that holds weight for female artists today.
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