hile other sections not specifically representing the central theme are termed episodes. The word fugue can be derived from fuga, the original meaning of flight. The movement of the music, one voice chasing the other, is representative of the flight and can also be connected to the heroics of the hunt which had underlying musical and sexual meanings. Wood says, "The mode and movement of the hunt as pursuit, flight, conquest, and capitulation, and its musical representation in fugal counterpoint have obvious associations with sexual seduction. For example, ..., a literary source of homosexual code-words in hunting and fowling images of the pursuit and capture of young game pheasants, peacocks, peahens, and 'pretty things'" (Solie, 167). Ethyl Smyth was a skilled hunter, rider, and horn player (an instrument of the hunt), it is therefore a good assumption that she was aware of these musical/textual code-words. Smyth's continual use of repetition in both her writing and composition alludes to the tendency of her use of the fugue. She wrote several autobiographies, usually repeating the same ideas and stories in each. She tells several versions of each story, much like the use of different voices to relate the main theme in the musical fugue. The recurring theme, in both seems to be the subject of her lesbian bond with Lisl Herzogenberg, the sister of the man with which she had her only heterosexual experience and the wife of her private teacher, Heinrich. In fact, it was her relationship with Harry Brewster (the brother) that caused Lisl to break ties with Ethel, devastating the composer. With each of her life experiences and the start of each new relationship in Smyth's life, the start of a new exposition is established. The various people in her life are the voices singing their own version of the main theme depicting Smyth's lesbian life. The flight analogy is also quite apparent as Ethel was in flight for most of her life - from home, ...
