Johanna Malt
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199253425
- eISBN:
- 9780191698132
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199253425.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
In a speech given in Prague in 1935, André Breton asked, ‘Is there, properly speaking, a left-wing art capable of defending itself?’. But despite his conviction that surrealism did indeed offer such ...
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In a speech given in Prague in 1935, André Breton asked, ‘Is there, properly speaking, a left-wing art capable of defending itself?’. But despite his conviction that surrealism did indeed offer such an art, Breton always struggled to make a theoretical connection between the surrealists' commitment to the cause of revolutionary socialism and the form that surrealist art and literature took. This book explores ways in which such a connection might be drawn, addressing the possibility of surrealist works as political in themselves and drawing on ways in which they have been considered as such by Marxists such as Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno. Encompassing Breton's and Louis Aragon's textual accounts of the object, as well as paintings and the various kinds of objet surréaliste produced from the end of the 1920s, it mobilises the concept of the fetish in order to consider such works as meeting points of surrealism's psychoanalytic and revolutionary preoccupations. Reading surrealist works of art and literature as political is not the same as knowing the surrealist movement to have been politically motivated. The revolutionary character of surrealist work is not always evident; indeed, the works themselves often seem to express a rather different set of concerns. As well as offering a new perspective on familiar and relatively neglected works, this book recuperates the gap between theory and practice as a productive space in which it is possible to recontextualise surrealist practice as an engagement with political questions on its own terms.Less
In a speech given in Prague in 1935, André Breton asked, ‘Is there, properly speaking, a left-wing art capable of defending itself?’. But despite his conviction that surrealism did indeed offer such an art, Breton always struggled to make a theoretical connection between the surrealists' commitment to the cause of revolutionary socialism and the form that surrealist art and literature took. This book explores ways in which such a connection might be drawn, addressing the possibility of surrealist works as political in themselves and drawing on ways in which they have been considered as such by Marxists such as Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno. Encompassing Breton's and Louis Aragon's textual accounts of the object, as well as paintings and the various kinds of objet surréaliste produced from the end of the 1920s, it mobilises the concept of the fetish in order to consider such works as meeting points of surrealism's psychoanalytic and revolutionary preoccupations. Reading surrealist works of art and literature as political is not the same as knowing the surrealist movement to have been politically motivated. The revolutionary character of surrealist work is not always evident; indeed, the works themselves often seem to express a rather different set of concerns. As well as offering a new perspective on familiar and relatively neglected works, this book recuperates the gap between theory and practice as a productive space in which it is possible to recontextualise surrealist practice as an engagement with political questions on its own terms.
Hugh Grady
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198130048
- eISBN:
- 9780191671906
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198130048.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
William Shakespeare was neither a Royalist defender of order and hierarchy nor a consistently radical champion of social equality, but rather simultaneously radical ...
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William Shakespeare was neither a Royalist defender of order and hierarchy nor a consistently radical champion of social equality, but rather simultaneously radical and conservative as a critic of emerging forms of modernity. This book argues that Shakespeare's social criticism in fact often parallels that of critics of modernity from our own Postmodernist era: that the broad analysis of modernity produced by Karl Marx, Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Michel Foucault, and others can serve as a productive enabling representation and critique of the emerging modernity represented by the image in Troilus and Cressida of ‘an universal wolf’ of appetite, power, and will. The readings in this book demonstrate Shakespeare's keen interest in what twentieth-century theory has called ‘reification’ — a term that designates social systems created by human societies, but that confronts those societies as operating beyond human control, according to an autonomous ‘systems’ logic — in nascent mercantile capitalism, in power-oriented Machiavellian politics, and in the scientistic, value-free rationality which Horkheimer and Adorno call ‘instrumental reason’.Less
William Shakespeare was neither a Royalist defender of order and hierarchy nor a consistently radical champion of social equality, but rather simultaneously radical and conservative as a critic of emerging forms of modernity. This book argues that Shakespeare's social criticism in fact often parallels that of critics of modernity from our own Postmodernist era: that the broad analysis of modernity produced by Karl Marx, Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Michel Foucault, and others can serve as a productive enabling representation and critique of the emerging modernity represented by the image in Troilus and Cressida of ‘an universal wolf’ of appetite, power, and will. The readings in this book demonstrate Shakespeare's keen interest in what twentieth-century theory has called ‘reification’ — a term that designates social systems created by human societies, but that confronts those societies as operating beyond human control, according to an autonomous ‘systems’ logic — in nascent mercantile capitalism, in power-oriented Machiavellian politics, and in the scientistic, value-free rationality which Horkheimer and Adorno call ‘instrumental reason’.
Ben Earle
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780197265390
- eISBN:
- 9780191760440
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265390.003.0012
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
The post-1945 neo-realist movement in Italian cinema is one of the twentieth century's most enduring cultural legacies. In his Fourth Symphony, ‘In onore della Resistenza’ (1950), Mario Zafred ...
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The post-1945 neo-realist movement in Italian cinema is one of the twentieth century's most enduring cultural legacies. In his Fourth Symphony, ‘In onore della Resistenza’ (1950), Mario Zafred (1922–87), the Zhdanovite music critic of the Communist Party daily L'Unità between 1949 and 1956, aligned his music with one of the great neo-realist themes, that of the partisan Resistance to the German occupation of Italy in the final two years of the war. Zafred's is the most notable Italian contribution to what is defined here as the mid-twentieth-century neo-realist symphony, a genre not precisely co-extensive with the socialist realist symphony of the Soviet bloc. Widely admired in the Italy of the 1950s, Zafred's music was swept off the stage of musical history by the ‘avant-garde’ revolution of the early 1960s. Half a century later, it is time to look again at the Fourth Symphony.Less
The post-1945 neo-realist movement in Italian cinema is one of the twentieth century's most enduring cultural legacies. In his Fourth Symphony, ‘In onore della Resistenza’ (1950), Mario Zafred (1922–87), the Zhdanovite music critic of the Communist Party daily L'Unità between 1949 and 1956, aligned his music with one of the great neo-realist themes, that of the partisan Resistance to the German occupation of Italy in the final two years of the war. Zafred's is the most notable Italian contribution to what is defined here as the mid-twentieth-century neo-realist symphony, a genre not precisely co-extensive with the socialist realist symphony of the Soviet bloc. Widely admired in the Italy of the 1950s, Zafred's music was swept off the stage of musical history by the ‘avant-garde’ revolution of the early 1960s. Half a century later, it is time to look again at the Fourth Symphony.
Anne C. Shreffler
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780197265390
- eISBN:
- 9780191760440
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- British Academy
- DOI:
- 10.5871/bacad/9780197265390.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
What kinds of music have been considered to exemplify left-wing thought in non-communist countries at different times and places? This chapter chooses an intentionally simplistic model of two basic ...
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What kinds of music have been considered to exemplify left-wing thought in non-communist countries at different times and places? This chapter chooses an intentionally simplistic model of two basic categories — Populist and Modernist — denoting music that is accessible to the masses on the one hand, and music that uses an advanced idiom in order to resist being co-opted by the commercial sphere or being used as a symbol of state power on the other. It proposes these categories as the articulation of two ideal types. The historiography of twentieth-century music in the United States understands Marxist music as intrinsically populist, whereas the modernist strain is almost completely unknown. In European historiography it is practically the reverse. So it is useful to outline these two perspectives for historiographical reasons alone. These models are illustrated and complicated through discussion of examples by Eisler, Copland, Schoenberg, and Nono.Less
What kinds of music have been considered to exemplify left-wing thought in non-communist countries at different times and places? This chapter chooses an intentionally simplistic model of two basic categories — Populist and Modernist — denoting music that is accessible to the masses on the one hand, and music that uses an advanced idiom in order to resist being co-opted by the commercial sphere or being used as a symbol of state power on the other. It proposes these categories as the articulation of two ideal types. The historiography of twentieth-century music in the United States understands Marxist music as intrinsically populist, whereas the modernist strain is almost completely unknown. In European historiography it is practically the reverse. So it is useful to outline these two perspectives for historiographical reasons alone. These models are illustrated and complicated through discussion of examples by Eisler, Copland, Schoenberg, and Nono.
Elaine Fisher
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195394337
- eISBN:
- 9780199777358
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195394337.003.0012
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
In recent decades, a fair amount of controversy has been generated surrounding both Mircea Eliade’s youthful political association and his academic methodology. One particular trend in recent ...
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In recent decades, a fair amount of controversy has been generated surrounding both Mircea Eliade’s youthful political association and his academic methodology. One particular trend in recent critical literature draws a causal connection between Eliade’s scholarship on religion and his association with the Romanian Iron Guard. According to this critique, Eliade’s approach to the study of religion is symptomatic of his Fascist political leanings and continues to encode and circulate a Fascist mentality in the academy today. This chapter argues that, by means of rhetorical fallacy and semiotic inversion, Eliade’s scholarship has been systematically mapped onto Fascist thought through a number of keyword associations. As a result, the sui generis approach to the study of religion, as well as interest in mythology and the esoteric aspects of religion, becomes problematically construed, in and of themselves, as Fascist enterprises.Less
In recent decades, a fair amount of controversy has been generated surrounding both Mircea Eliade’s youthful political association and his academic methodology. One particular trend in recent critical literature draws a causal connection between Eliade’s scholarship on religion and his association with the Romanian Iron Guard. According to this critique, Eliade’s approach to the study of religion is symptomatic of his Fascist political leanings and continues to encode and circulate a Fascist mentality in the academy today. This chapter argues that, by means of rhetorical fallacy and semiotic inversion, Eliade’s scholarship has been systematically mapped onto Fascist thought through a number of keyword associations. As a result, the sui generis approach to the study of religion, as well as interest in mythology and the esoteric aspects of religion, becomes problematically construed, in and of themselves, as Fascist enterprises.
Eric F. Clarke
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195151947
- eISBN:
- 9780199870400
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195151947.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, Psychology of Music
This chapter starts by acknowledging that much of the discussion of music in the previous chapters has focused on music that has a strong and obvious link to materials outside music (texts, dramatic ...
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This chapter starts by acknowledging that much of the discussion of music in the previous chapters has focused on music that has a strong and obvious link to materials outside music (texts, dramatic or narrative context, ideological allegiances), and considers whether and how the ecological approach can shed light on the so-called absolute and autonomous music of the Western canon. After a brief discussion of the concepts of autonomy and heteronomy, the chapter moves to a discussion of autonomy and ecology, and from there to a discussion of different listening styles. A number of different characterizations of listening are presented, including two typologies — by Theodor Adorno and Pierre Schaeffer. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the specific character of autonomous music and the particular kind of consciousness that it can afford.Less
This chapter starts by acknowledging that much of the discussion of music in the previous chapters has focused on music that has a strong and obvious link to materials outside music (texts, dramatic or narrative context, ideological allegiances), and considers whether and how the ecological approach can shed light on the so-called absolute and autonomous music of the Western canon. After a brief discussion of the concepts of autonomy and heteronomy, the chapter moves to a discussion of autonomy and ecology, and from there to a discussion of different listening styles. A number of different characterizations of listening are presented, including two typologies — by Theodor Adorno and Pierre Schaeffer. The chapter concludes with a consideration of the specific character of autonomous music and the particular kind of consciousness that it can afford.
David‐Antoine Williams
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199583546
- eISBN:
- 9780191595295
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199583546.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter investigates Geoffrey Hill's abiding concern with the equation of semantic and ethical recognition, his experience of language as an arena in which our ethical being is both menaced and ...
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This chapter investigates Geoffrey Hill's abiding concern with the equation of semantic and ethical recognition, his experience of language as an arena in which our ethical being is both menaced and succoured, though perhaps not secured. Hill's cogitations on this problem accompany a career‐long exploration of the question of intrinsic value, a concept which he admits has gone out of fashion but which he nonetheless attempts to rescue for his theory of language. Hill's ethics of responsibility requires that literature memorialize and memorize the dead, but his scepticism about the ability of language to do justice to its subjects forces him into a paradoxical contemplation of silence as the only responsible speech. Even so, the question of value has increasingly been posed by Hill in its public dimension, as embodying the union of civic (including political), theological (including metaphysical), and grammatical (including etymological) thought. One way Hill thinks the writer can realize intrinsic value is in the assiduous plying of words, the working in poetry of their etymology, grammar, and syntax into a high semantic pitch; this chapter pays special attention to the words that have meant the most to Hill: ‘value’, ‘atonement’, ‘endurance’, ‘patience’, ‘attention’, ‘justice’, ‘grace’, ‘pitch’, ‘common’, and ‘alienation’.Less
This chapter investigates Geoffrey Hill's abiding concern with the equation of semantic and ethical recognition, his experience of language as an arena in which our ethical being is both menaced and succoured, though perhaps not secured. Hill's cogitations on this problem accompany a career‐long exploration of the question of intrinsic value, a concept which he admits has gone out of fashion but which he nonetheless attempts to rescue for his theory of language. Hill's ethics of responsibility requires that literature memorialize and memorize the dead, but his scepticism about the ability of language to do justice to its subjects forces him into a paradoxical contemplation of silence as the only responsible speech. Even so, the question of value has increasingly been posed by Hill in its public dimension, as embodying the union of civic (including political), theological (including metaphysical), and grammatical (including etymological) thought. One way Hill thinks the writer can realize intrinsic value is in the assiduous plying of words, the working in poetry of their etymology, grammar, and syntax into a high semantic pitch; this chapter pays special attention to the words that have meant the most to Hill: ‘value’, ‘atonement’, ‘endurance’, ‘patience’, ‘attention’, ‘justice’, ‘grace’, ‘pitch’, ‘common’, and ‘alienation’.
Margaret Notley
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195305470
- eISBN:
- 9780199866946
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305470.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Brahms's self-identity and public identity as a Liberal are the basis for the two historical perspectives in this book. One reconstructs his place in Vienna. The other draws on criticism conditioned ...
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Brahms's self-identity and public identity as a Liberal are the basis for the two historical perspectives in this book. One reconstructs his place in Vienna. The other draws on criticism conditioned by Western Marxism, on ideas developed in response to 19th-century Liberalism. Brahms appears not to have recognized a societal problem of late Liberalism: exaggerated emphasis on the individual. He did, however, recognize a related musical problem delineated by Adorno — individualized themes at the expense of the formal whole — and made it central to his lifework. Commentary on Brahms's chamber music draws on other ideas articulated by Adorno and Lukács such as “second nature”, while discussion of ideology of the symphony applies Habermas's explanation of the “public sphere”, in both instances to move between social and musical problems associated with late Liberalism. Emphasis is placed on Brahms's diverse sources of renewal and on an under-explored facet of his music: his mastery of ways and degrees of establishing a key in this late period of tonality. With Brahms's works and his circumstances as exemplars, an addendum to late-style dialectics is proposed: late works are at once an expression of their time and alienated from the contemporary context. For better and worse, Brahms remained an orthodox Liberal. Thus, despite his allegiance to German nationalism he did not succumb to the tribalism that became critical around 1890.Less
Brahms's self-identity and public identity as a Liberal are the basis for the two historical perspectives in this book. One reconstructs his place in Vienna. The other draws on criticism conditioned by Western Marxism, on ideas developed in response to 19th-century Liberalism. Brahms appears not to have recognized a societal problem of late Liberalism: exaggerated emphasis on the individual. He did, however, recognize a related musical problem delineated by Adorno — individualized themes at the expense of the formal whole — and made it central to his lifework. Commentary on Brahms's chamber music draws on other ideas articulated by Adorno and Lukács such as “second nature”, while discussion of ideology of the symphony applies Habermas's explanation of the “public sphere”, in both instances to move between social and musical problems associated with late Liberalism. Emphasis is placed on Brahms's diverse sources of renewal and on an under-explored facet of his music: his mastery of ways and degrees of establishing a key in this late period of tonality. With Brahms's works and his circumstances as exemplars, an addendum to late-style dialectics is proposed: late works are at once an expression of their time and alienated from the contemporary context. For better and worse, Brahms remained an orthodox Liberal. Thus, despite his allegiance to German nationalism he did not succumb to the tribalism that became critical around 1890.
Nicholas Cook
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195170566
- eISBN:
- 9780199871216
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195170566.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Schenker's sometimes virulently conservative politics have been a major problem for later commentators, who have sought to minimize their relevance to his theory. Taking as its starting point his ...
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Schenker's sometimes virulently conservative politics have been a major problem for later commentators, who have sought to minimize their relevance to his theory. Taking as its starting point his essay “The mission of German genius” (1921), this chapter argues that while prompted by the experience of the First World War, Schenker's politics expressed an underlying cultural conservatism, with roots in the previous century, that is fundamental to his work. In early 20th-century Vienna, the collision between this conservative tradition and processes of modernization resulted in a perniciously binary pattern of thought that is reflected in Schenker's writings, but also prompted a desire for reconciliation heavily coloured by nostalgia. Both the desire and the nostalgia — which are shared with such disparate contemporaries as the piano manufacturer Ludwig Bösendorfer and T. W. Adorno — are central to Schenker's project, for which music is understood as always imbued with social meaning.Less
Schenker's sometimes virulently conservative politics have been a major problem for later commentators, who have sought to minimize their relevance to his theory. Taking as its starting point his essay “The mission of German genius” (1921), this chapter argues that while prompted by the experience of the First World War, Schenker's politics expressed an underlying cultural conservatism, with roots in the previous century, that is fundamental to his work. In early 20th-century Vienna, the collision between this conservative tradition and processes of modernization resulted in a perniciously binary pattern of thought that is reflected in Schenker's writings, but also prompted a desire for reconciliation heavily coloured by nostalgia. Both the desire and the nostalgia — which are shared with such disparate contemporaries as the piano manufacturer Ludwig Bösendorfer and T. W. Adorno — are central to Schenker's project, for which music is understood as always imbued with social meaning.
Tia DeNora
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195167498
- eISBN:
- 9780199867707
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167498.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter seeks to counterbalance the influence of T. W. Adorno, particularly evident in the “New” musicology of the 1990s, by proposing an agenda for the sociology of music that is focused firmly ...
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This chapter seeks to counterbalance the influence of T. W. Adorno, particularly evident in the “New” musicology of the 1990s, by proposing an agenda for the sociology of music that is focused firmly on people making music. It outlines a “toolkit” of different empirical approaches for the analysis of music as a social process, focusing on in its role in people's everyday lives and in identity construction. There is discussion of work that has examined the impact of social factors on composition, including that of commercial competition on innovation in pop music; social factors in the construction of musicians' reputations; the relationship between sub-cultural identity and musical taste; and music's role in the social construction of subjectivity. These studies use empirical methods ranging from participant observation, through interviews and the analysis of historical documents, to the more impersonal methods of large-scale social statistics and economic surveys.Less
This chapter seeks to counterbalance the influence of T. W. Adorno, particularly evident in the “New” musicology of the 1990s, by proposing an agenda for the sociology of music that is focused firmly on people making music. It outlines a “toolkit” of different empirical approaches for the analysis of music as a social process, focusing on in its role in people's everyday lives and in identity construction. There is discussion of work that has examined the impact of social factors on composition, including that of commercial competition on innovation in pop music; social factors in the construction of musicians' reputations; the relationship between sub-cultural identity and musical taste; and music's role in the social construction of subjectivity. These studies use empirical methods ranging from participant observation, through interviews and the analysis of historical documents, to the more impersonal methods of large-scale social statistics and economic surveys.
Andrew N. Rubin
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691154152
- eISBN:
- 9781400842179
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691154152.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter turns to Institute for Social Research (or Frankfurt School) member Theodor Adorno as the partial representation of the experience of exile in terms of the ideology of positivism, which ...
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This chapter turns to Institute for Social Research (or Frankfurt School) member Theodor Adorno as the partial representation of the experience of exile in terms of the ideology of positivism, which had damaged the very category of experience in general. Positivism and empiricism had reduced reality to a prosaic and administered calculus, the effect of which was embodied in the position of the exile when confronted with modernity. Moreover, as Adorno writes, “It is unmistakably clear to the intellectual from abroad that he will have to eradicate himself as an autonomous being if he hopes to achieve anything.” In postwar Germany, his critique of positivism would face new, mostly institutional challenges.Less
This chapter turns to Institute for Social Research (or Frankfurt School) member Theodor Adorno as the partial representation of the experience of exile in terms of the ideology of positivism, which had damaged the very category of experience in general. Positivism and empiricism had reduced reality to a prosaic and administered calculus, the effect of which was embodied in the position of the exile when confronted with modernity. Moreover, as Adorno writes, “It is unmistakably clear to the intellectual from abroad that he will have to eradicate himself as an autonomous being if he hopes to achieve anything.” In postwar Germany, his critique of positivism would face new, mostly institutional challenges.
Margaret Notley
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195305470
- eISBN:
- 9780199866946
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305470.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of a chamber movement by Brahms, which introduces the book's themes, one of which concerns genre aesthetics and in particular cultural significance ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of a chamber movement by Brahms, which introduces the book's themes, one of which concerns genre aesthetics and in particular cultural significance assigned to chamber music and slow movements. Focusing on the inwardness expressed in the excerpt, it then elucidates a second theme, the historicity of his music: the passage, with its clearly implied reflecting subject, sounds of its time and place, late 19th-century Vienna. Further discussion of the excerpt exposes other themes: of lateness within Brahms's oeuvre and in music-historical narratives that encompass him and his time. The chapter establishes the book's historical perspectives and critical sources, such as ideas about late Liberalism taken from Adorno and Lukács. It also introduces the eclectic analytical methodology and music-analytic questions to be addressed, which concern late style and historical lateness.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of a chamber movement by Brahms, which introduces the book's themes, one of which concerns genre aesthetics and in particular cultural significance assigned to chamber music and slow movements. Focusing on the inwardness expressed in the excerpt, it then elucidates a second theme, the historicity of his music: the passage, with its clearly implied reflecting subject, sounds of its time and place, late 19th-century Vienna. Further discussion of the excerpt exposes other themes: of lateness within Brahms's oeuvre and in music-historical narratives that encompass him and his time. The chapter establishes the book's historical perspectives and critical sources, such as ideas about late Liberalism taken from Adorno and Lukács. It also introduces the eclectic analytical methodology and music-analytic questions to be addressed, which concern late style and historical lateness.
Margaret Notley
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195305470
- eISBN:
- 9780199866946
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305470.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Acknowledging both the general aging of music that Adorno heard in Brahms and observations that most of his oeuvre sounds “twilit”, this chapter asserts “late style” as nonetheless meaningful. ...
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Acknowledging both the general aging of music that Adorno heard in Brahms and observations that most of his oeuvre sounds “twilit”, this chapter asserts “late style” as nonetheless meaningful. Rejecting cause and effect, it draws on Freud's concept of overdetermination to address the emergence of late-style features and proposes an addendum to late-style dialectics: late works are at once an expression of their time and alienated from the contemporary context. The significance of German nationalism to works from the mid-1880s and others from the 1890s is explored, as is the politicization of “late style”. Rather than simplifying late style, the chapter uses diverse manifestations — e.g., mannerism, blending of technical and expressive features — as hermeneutic points of entry. Special emphasis is placed on Brahms's mastery of ways and degrees of asserting a key in tonality's late period, and on moments of expressive complexity that model psychological process, evoking Freud's Vienna.Less
Acknowledging both the general aging of music that Adorno heard in Brahms and observations that most of his oeuvre sounds “twilit”, this chapter asserts “late style” as nonetheless meaningful. Rejecting cause and effect, it draws on Freud's concept of overdetermination to address the emergence of late-style features and proposes an addendum to late-style dialectics: late works are at once an expression of their time and alienated from the contemporary context. The significance of German nationalism to works from the mid-1880s and others from the 1890s is explored, as is the politicization of “late style”. Rather than simplifying late style, the chapter uses diverse manifestations — e.g., mannerism, blending of technical and expressive features — as hermeneutic points of entry. Special emphasis is placed on Brahms's mastery of ways and degrees of asserting a key in tonality's late period, and on moments of expressive complexity that model psychological process, evoking Freud's Vienna.
Margaret Notley
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195305470
- eISBN:
- 9780199866946
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305470.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter critiques Adorno's observation that Brahms “bears the mark of middle-class society's individualistic phase” (late Liberalism) as against the vision expressed in Beethoven's music. ...
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This chapter critiques Adorno's observation that Brahms “bears the mark of middle-class society's individualistic phase” (late Liberalism) as against the vision expressed in Beethoven's music. Elsewhere, Adorno implied another perspective: Brahms understood the musical problem, individualized themes at the expense of the formal whole — if not the societal problem (excessive individualism) — and made it central to his lifework. Jenner's account of lessons with Brahms suggests an ethics of composition, supporting meaning found in theme-form relations by Adorno, Gülke, and others who view sonata form in Hegelian terms. In late movements, Brahms's handles theme-form relations by problematizing the formation of a theme and creating new oppositions to replace that between thematic and non-thematic material available to Beethoven but not to him. For Brahms and Adorno, inventing and developing an idea relate to each other in compositional process as themes and schema do in formal process: the relationship is mutual and dynamic.Less
This chapter critiques Adorno's observation that Brahms “bears the mark of middle-class society's individualistic phase” (late Liberalism) as against the vision expressed in Beethoven's music. Elsewhere, Adorno implied another perspective: Brahms understood the musical problem, individualized themes at the expense of the formal whole — if not the societal problem (excessive individualism) — and made it central to his lifework. Jenner's account of lessons with Brahms suggests an ethics of composition, supporting meaning found in theme-form relations by Adorno, Gülke, and others who view sonata form in Hegelian terms. In late movements, Brahms's handles theme-form relations by problematizing the formation of a theme and creating new oppositions to replace that between thematic and non-thematic material available to Beethoven but not to him. For Brahms and Adorno, inventing and developing an idea relate to each other in compositional process as themes and schema do in formal process: the relationship is mutual and dynamic.
Margaret Notley
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195305470
- eISBN:
- 9780199866946
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305470.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Brahms voiced his sense of lateness by deploring declining music-pedagogical traditions. In a project of lifelong self-improvement, he compiled examples from other composers' music that seem to ...
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Brahms voiced his sense of lateness by deploring declining music-pedagogical traditions. In a project of lifelong self-improvement, he compiled examples from other composers' music that seem to violate a rule against parallel octaves and fifths. Evidence in the manuscript, letters, and his personal library shows the impact of the emergent field of musicology on this study. Brahms rejected attempts by Helmholtz, Chrysander, and other early musicologists to explain musical conventions such as voice leading — matters of “second nature” in the parlance of Adorno and Lukács — as first nature, as well as the related contemporary interest in just intonation. But villanelle by Marenzio and others, which referred to folk practices seemingly based in first nature, confronted him with unfathomable “foreign worlds”. It is argued that a final phase of collecting began in 1893-94 and served as a source of renewal apparent in voice-leading choices in his clarinet sonatas.Less
Brahms voiced his sense of lateness by deploring declining music-pedagogical traditions. In a project of lifelong self-improvement, he compiled examples from other composers' music that seem to violate a rule against parallel octaves and fifths. Evidence in the manuscript, letters, and his personal library shows the impact of the emergent field of musicology on this study. Brahms rejected attempts by Helmholtz, Chrysander, and other early musicologists to explain musical conventions such as voice leading — matters of “second nature” in the parlance of Adorno and Lukács — as first nature, as well as the related contemporary interest in just intonation. But villanelle by Marenzio and others, which referred to folk practices seemingly based in first nature, confronted him with unfathomable “foreign worlds”. It is argued that a final phase of collecting began in 1893-94 and served as a source of renewal apparent in voice-leading choices in his clarinet sonatas.
Jack Zipes
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691160580
- eISBN:
- 9781400852581
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691160580.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Folk Literature
This concluding chapter examines the explorations of Ernst Bloch (1885–1977), the great philosopher of hope, and Theodor Adorno (1903–69), the foremost critical thinker of the Frankfurt School, ...
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This concluding chapter examines the explorations of Ernst Bloch (1885–1977), the great philosopher of hope, and Theodor Adorno (1903–69), the foremost critical thinker of the Frankfurt School, concerning the profound ramifications of the fairy tale. In doing so they made a significant contribution to the Grimms' cultural legacy. The chapter reveals that, not long after Bloch escaped the dystopian realm of East Germany in 1961, he held a radio discussion with Adorno about the contradictions of utopian longing. Both displayed an unusual interest in fairy tales and were very familiar with the Grimms' tales, which they considered to be utopian.Less
This concluding chapter examines the explorations of Ernst Bloch (1885–1977), the great philosopher of hope, and Theodor Adorno (1903–69), the foremost critical thinker of the Frankfurt School, concerning the profound ramifications of the fairy tale. In doing so they made a significant contribution to the Grimms' cultural legacy. The chapter reveals that, not long after Bloch escaped the dystopian realm of East Germany in 1961, he held a radio discussion with Adorno about the contradictions of utopian longing. Both displayed an unusual interest in fairy tales and were very familiar with the Grimms' tales, which they considered to be utopian.
Beate Kutschke
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195336641
- eISBN:
- 9780199868551
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195336641.003.0005
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Popular
The West‐German avant‐garde music scene of the early 1970s—the period in which the spirit of the New Left manifested itself most intensively in the musical field—was especially marked by the numerous ...
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The West‐German avant‐garde music scene of the early 1970s—the period in which the spirit of the New Left manifested itself most intensively in the musical field—was especially marked by the numerous discussions and debates about the nature of political music, its perfection and failures, conducted by musicians and music writers with endless energy and engagement. This chapter throws light on one of these debates: the argument between Nikolaus A. Huber and Clytus Gottwald in 1971–72 about Huber's composition Harakiri. It investigates the terms of the debate, firstly with regard to the musical facts—and in particular a comparison made at the time between Huber's Harakiri and Hans Otte's contemporary piece, Zero—and secondly with regard to the ideas of Theodor W. Adorno, who provided the New Leftist avant‐gardists with politico‐aesthetical ideas.Less
The West‐German avant‐garde music scene of the early 1970s—the period in which the spirit of the New Left manifested itself most intensively in the musical field—was especially marked by the numerous discussions and debates about the nature of political music, its perfection and failures, conducted by musicians and music writers with endless energy and engagement. This chapter throws light on one of these debates: the argument between Nikolaus A. Huber and Clytus Gottwald in 1971–72 about Huber's composition Harakiri. It investigates the terms of the debate, firstly with regard to the musical facts—and in particular a comparison made at the time between Huber's Harakiri and Hans Otte's contemporary piece, Zero—and secondly with regard to the ideas of Theodor W. Adorno, who provided the New Leftist avant‐gardists with politico‐aesthetical ideas.
David Lloyd
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823282388
- eISBN:
- 9780823284948
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823282388.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Aesthetics
Under Representation argues that the relation between the concepts of universality, freedom and humanity, and the racial order of the modern world is grounded in the founding texts of aesthetic ...
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Under Representation argues that the relation between the concepts of universality, freedom and humanity, and the racial order of the modern world is grounded in the founding texts of aesthetic philosophy. It challenges the absence of sustained thought about race in postcolonial studies and the lack of attention to aesthetics in critical race theory. Late Enlightenment discourse on aesthetic experience proposes a decisive account of the conditions of possibility for universal human subjecthood. The aesthetic forges a powerful racial regime of representation whose genealogy runs from enlightenment thinkers like Kant and Schiller to late modernist critics like Adorno and Benjamin. For aesthetic philosophy, representation is an activity that articulates the various spheres of human practice and theory, from the most fundamental acts of perception and reflection to the relation of the subject to the political, the economic, and the social. Representation regulates the distribution of racial identifications along a developmental trajectory: the racialized remain “under representation,” on the threshold of humanity and not yet capable of freedom and civility as aesthetic thought defines those attributes. To ignore the aesthetic is thus to overlook its continuing force in the formation of the racial and political structures down to the present. In its five chapters, Under Representation investigates the aesthetic foundations of modern political subjectivity; race and the sublime; the logic of assimilation and the sterotype; the subaltern critique of representation; and the place of magic and the primitive in modernist concepts of art, aura, and representation.Less
Under Representation argues that the relation between the concepts of universality, freedom and humanity, and the racial order of the modern world is grounded in the founding texts of aesthetic philosophy. It challenges the absence of sustained thought about race in postcolonial studies and the lack of attention to aesthetics in critical race theory. Late Enlightenment discourse on aesthetic experience proposes a decisive account of the conditions of possibility for universal human subjecthood. The aesthetic forges a powerful racial regime of representation whose genealogy runs from enlightenment thinkers like Kant and Schiller to late modernist critics like Adorno and Benjamin. For aesthetic philosophy, representation is an activity that articulates the various spheres of human practice and theory, from the most fundamental acts of perception and reflection to the relation of the subject to the political, the economic, and the social. Representation regulates the distribution of racial identifications along a developmental trajectory: the racialized remain “under representation,” on the threshold of humanity and not yet capable of freedom and civility as aesthetic thought defines those attributes. To ignore the aesthetic is thus to overlook its continuing force in the formation of the racial and political structures down to the present. In its five chapters, Under Representation investigates the aesthetic foundations of modern political subjectivity; race and the sublime; the logic of assimilation and the sterotype; the subaltern critique of representation; and the place of magic and the primitive in modernist concepts of art, aura, and representation.
Joanna Demers
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195387650
- eISBN:
- 9780199863594
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195387650.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, History, American
Near the end of his life, Pierre Schaeffer gave an interview in which he described his attempt to develop a new musical language as a “failure.” Using Schaeffer’s dismal assessment of his life’s work ...
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Near the end of his life, Pierre Schaeffer gave an interview in which he described his attempt to develop a new musical language as a “failure.” Using Schaeffer’s dismal assessment of his life’s work as a point of departure, the conclusion considers the anxiety that experimental electronic music generates. The technical control that electronic instruments and applications afford is such that many electronic works behave nothing like conventional music. They may utterly avoid any trappings of melody, harmony, or predictable rhythm and may seem more similar to other media such as film or documentary. The conclusion argues that while its lack of musical parameters encourages a different type of listening experience, electronic music nonetheless cultivates an aesthetic awareness of sound, one anticipated in Theodor Adorno’s theory of “regressive listening.”Less
Near the end of his life, Pierre Schaeffer gave an interview in which he described his attempt to develop a new musical language as a “failure.” Using Schaeffer’s dismal assessment of his life’s work as a point of departure, the conclusion considers the anxiety that experimental electronic music generates. The technical control that electronic instruments and applications afford is such that many electronic works behave nothing like conventional music. They may utterly avoid any trappings of melody, harmony, or predictable rhythm and may seem more similar to other media such as film or documentary. The conclusion argues that while its lack of musical parameters encourages a different type of listening experience, electronic music nonetheless cultivates an aesthetic awareness of sound, one anticipated in Theodor Adorno’s theory of “regressive listening.”
Christopher Lee
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804778701
- eISBN:
- 9780804783705
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804778701.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
The history of Asian American literature reveals the ongoing attempt to work through the fraught relationship between identity politics and literary representation. This relationship is especially ...
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The history of Asian American literature reveals the ongoing attempt to work through the fraught relationship between identity politics and literary representation. This relationship is especially evident in literary works which claim that their content represents the socio-historical world. This book argues that the reframing of the field as a critical, rather than identity-based, project nonetheless continues to rely on the logics of identity. Drawing on the writings of philosopher and literary critic Georg Lukacs, it identifies a persistent composite figure that it calls the “idealized critical subject,” which provides coherence to oppositional knowledge projects and political practices. It reframes identity as an aesthetic figure that tries to articulate the subjective conditions for knowledge. Harnessing Theodor Adorno's notion of aesthetic semblance, the book offers an alternative account of identity as a figure akin to modern artwork. Like art, it argues, identity provides access to imagined worlds that in turn wage a critique of ongoing histories and realities of racialization. This book assembles a transnational archive of literary texts by Eileen Chang, Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, Chang-rae Lee, Michael Ondaatje, and Jose Garcia Villa, revealing the intersections of subjectivity and representation, and drawing our attention to their limits.Less
The history of Asian American literature reveals the ongoing attempt to work through the fraught relationship between identity politics and literary representation. This relationship is especially evident in literary works which claim that their content represents the socio-historical world. This book argues that the reframing of the field as a critical, rather than identity-based, project nonetheless continues to rely on the logics of identity. Drawing on the writings of philosopher and literary critic Georg Lukacs, it identifies a persistent composite figure that it calls the “idealized critical subject,” which provides coherence to oppositional knowledge projects and political practices. It reframes identity as an aesthetic figure that tries to articulate the subjective conditions for knowledge. Harnessing Theodor Adorno's notion of aesthetic semblance, the book offers an alternative account of identity as a figure akin to modern artwork. Like art, it argues, identity provides access to imagined worlds that in turn wage a critique of ongoing histories and realities of racialization. This book assembles a transnational archive of literary texts by Eileen Chang, Frank Chin, Maxine Hong Kingston, Chang-rae Lee, Michael Ondaatje, and Jose Garcia Villa, revealing the intersections of subjectivity and representation, and drawing our attention to their limits.
