From Musicology to Novel: Reassessing Robertson Davies’s Literary Representation of Peter Warlock

This article reconsiders the literary refiguring of the British composer Peter Warlock as the character Giles Revelstoke in Robertson Davies’s 1958 novel A Mixture of Frailties. Although several Davies scholars have highlighted the general nature of this portrait, a detailed consideration of how Cecil Gray’s 1934 study of Warlock was a catalyst for Davies has yet to be explored. Gray’s book allowed Davies to incorporate a plethora of details from Warlock’s biography (including his untimely death) and to draw upon Warlock’s work as a composer and critic, his reception, and his family background; however, Davies was also able to explore his own interpretative space. In comparing A Mixture of Frailties with other literary refigurings of Warlock in the early twentieth century, the detail of Davies’s portrayal is distinctive, particularly in terms of its discussion of music. Davies’s novel can therefore be identified as a significant contribution to musico-literary relations.