British academic Gavin Hopps sets out to clarify and explore Steven Patrick Morrissey's musical and literary legacy in MORRISSEY: THE PAGEANT OF HIS BLEEDING HEART. Hopps highlights the pop singer/song-writer's unconventional attitude toward his stardom (for example, advocating celibacy) and the nerdy awkwardness that only managed to attract more fans and bolster his performances. Hopps also digs in with his literary claws to the lyrics that Morrissey penned for the Smiths, the band he fronted throughout the 1980s, as well as for the solo outing that followed upon the band's dissolution. Hopps compares Morrissey's writing to titans of British literature like Oscar Wilde and George Eliot, as well as Samuel Beckett and Paul Celan, asserting that the British pop star deserves as much credit as a literary figure as he has received for his musical influence.
- Genre: Poetry, Biography + Autobiography, Music
- Subgenre: Instruction + Study / Songwriting, Composers + Musicians, Instruction + Study / Voice, History + Criticism, Genres + Styles / Rock, Genres + Styles / Pop Vocal, General
- Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group
- Pages: 313
- Edition: Reprint
- Language: English
- Format: paperback
- Release Date: March 1, 2012
- Date Published: March 1, 2012
- Author: Gavin Hopps