The Sarah Siddons Audio Files: Romanticism and the Lost Voice

Abstract

During her lifetime (1755-1831), English actress Sarah Siddons was an international celebrity acclaimed for her performances of tragic heroines. We know what she looked like--an endless number of artists asked her to sit for portraits and sculptures--but what of her famous voice, reported to cause audiences to hyperventilate or faint? In The Sarah Siddons Audio Files , Judith Pascoe takes readers on a journey to discover how the actor's voice actually sounded. In lively and engaging prose, Pascoe retraces her quixotic search, which leads her to enrol in a Voice for Actors class, to collect Lady Macbeth voice prints, and to listen more carefully to the soundscape of her life. Bringing together archival discoveries, sound recording history, and media theory, Pascoe shows how romantic poets' preoccupation with voices is linked to a larger cultural anxiety about the voice's ephemerality. The Sarah Siddons Audio Files contributes to a growing body of work on the fascinating history of sound and will engage a broad audience interested in how recording technology has altered human experience.

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