Vanessa Agnew
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195336665
- eISBN:
- 9780199868544
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195336665.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This introductory chapter presents the central figures in the book — Charles Burney and his German interlocutors — along with the book's main problem: the Enlightenment interrogation of Neoplatonic ...
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This introductory chapter presents the central figures in the book — Charles Burney and his German interlocutors — along with the book's main problem: the Enlightenment interrogation of Neoplatonic ideas. It argues for the centrality of travel and cross-cultural musical encounters to the development of musical thought in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Further, it raises the question of how music and musical thought were imbricated in the articulation of new cultural and national identities. The chapter frames this with a rereading of the Orpheus myth and asks what happened to Neoplatonic ideas when Europeans were systematically exposed to other kinds of music. It argues that the encounter with musical difference brought about a shift in thinking. When scholars found that Orpheus ceased to exert exclusive control over music, they mobilized the pendant to the myth — Orpheus's subjugation by the savage and raucous Thracians. From now on, listening to others would hold potential dangers.Less
This introductory chapter presents the central figures in the book — Charles Burney and his German interlocutors — along with the book's main problem: the Enlightenment interrogation of Neoplatonic ideas. It argues for the centrality of travel and cross-cultural musical encounters to the development of musical thought in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Further, it raises the question of how music and musical thought were imbricated in the articulation of new cultural and national identities. The chapter frames this with a rereading of the Orpheus myth and asks what happened to Neoplatonic ideas when Europeans were systematically exposed to other kinds of music. It argues that the encounter with musical difference brought about a shift in thinking. When scholars found that Orpheus ceased to exert exclusive control over music, they mobilized the pendant to the myth — Orpheus's subjugation by the savage and raucous Thracians. From now on, listening to others would hold potential dangers.
Vanessa Agnew
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195336665
- eISBN:
- 9780199868544
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195336665.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter analyzes debates about the meaning and power of music and the constitution of English culture in the latter part of the century. These debates pitted ideas about the power of music ...
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This chapter analyzes debates about the meaning and power of music and the constitution of English culture in the latter part of the century. These debates pitted ideas about the power of music against an anti-Orphic discourse that challenged what some writers saw as the hyperinflation of music's moral and social uses. The chapter centers on Burney's thwarted efforts to found a music conservatory and makes a detailed study of his opposition — in particular, John Bicknell's parody, Musical Travels thro' England, by Joel Collier, Organist (1774). In so doing, the chapter investigates the kind of cultural work performed by parody, burlesque, and other forms of symbolic inversion. It shows that rather than ushering in a new set of aesthetic values, anti-Orphic discourse used a triangulated argument in which figures like the castrato, the Polynesian, the traveler, and the music scholar were parodied. By burlesquing the outsider, composers and writers sidelined cosmopolitan, aristocratic musical culture in an effort to consolidate middle class forms of cultural production. This suggests that by the latter part of the century, Britons'fascination with foreignness was giving way to new anxieties as debates about music were folded into broader concerns about changing class relations, abolitionism, Jacobinism, and the loss of the American colonies.Less
This chapter analyzes debates about the meaning and power of music and the constitution of English culture in the latter part of the century. These debates pitted ideas about the power of music against an anti-Orphic discourse that challenged what some writers saw as the hyperinflation of music's moral and social uses. The chapter centers on Burney's thwarted efforts to found a music conservatory and makes a detailed study of his opposition — in particular, John Bicknell's parody, Musical Travels thro' England, by Joel Collier, Organist (1774). In so doing, the chapter investigates the kind of cultural work performed by parody, burlesque, and other forms of symbolic inversion. It shows that rather than ushering in a new set of aesthetic values, anti-Orphic discourse used a triangulated argument in which figures like the castrato, the Polynesian, the traveler, and the music scholar were parodied. By burlesquing the outsider, composers and writers sidelined cosmopolitan, aristocratic musical culture in an effort to consolidate middle class forms of cultural production. This suggests that by the latter part of the century, Britons'fascination with foreignness was giving way to new anxieties as debates about music were folded into broader concerns about changing class relations, abolitionism, Jacobinism, and the loss of the American colonies.
Terryl L. Givens
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195313901
- eISBN:
- 9780199871933
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195313901.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
Preexistence is associated with both Pythagoras and Orpheus, however. Plato is the most important classical source for ideas about pre-existence, writing about it in Phaedo, Meno, Phaedrus, Republic, ...
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Preexistence is associated with both Pythagoras and Orpheus, however. Plato is the most important classical source for ideas about pre-existence, writing about it in Phaedo, Meno, Phaedrus, Republic, and Timaeus. Symposium also presents a version of soul-mate love as have premortal bases. Preexistence supports Plato's particular epistemology as well as a version of theodicy and his understanding of erotic desire. Plato also links preexistence to theosis, a connection that will contribute to the paradigms eventual demise.Less
Preexistence is associated with both Pythagoras and Orpheus, however. Plato is the most important classical source for ideas about pre-existence, writing about it in Phaedo, Meno, Phaedrus, Republic, and Timaeus. Symposium also presents a version of soul-mate love as have premortal bases. Preexistence supports Plato's particular epistemology as well as a version of theodicy and his understanding of erotic desire. Plato also links preexistence to theosis, a connection that will contribute to the paradigms eventual demise.
John Casey
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- February 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195092950
- eISBN:
- 9780199869732
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195092950.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
In ancient Greece a new idea of immortality emerges—hope, not for personal survival, but fame and eternal memory. This becomes an official doctrine of both Greece and Rome, but one might doubt how ...
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In ancient Greece a new idea of immortality emerges—hope, not for personal survival, but fame and eternal memory. This becomes an official doctrine of both Greece and Rome, but one might doubt how far it was truly believed in. The melancholy underworld of the shades, conscious only if they drink sacrificial blood, makes the “official” doctrine of civic virtue, with a readiness to die for the city both heroic and scarcely possible. Skepticism about civic virtue, especially in some Greek and Roman epitaphs, is explored, as is the hope of future life in the religion of Orphism. The chapter ends with discussion of Lucretius, Horace, Plato, and Aristotle.Less
In ancient Greece a new idea of immortality emerges—hope, not for personal survival, but fame and eternal memory. This becomes an official doctrine of both Greece and Rome, but one might doubt how far it was truly believed in. The melancholy underworld of the shades, conscious only if they drink sacrificial blood, makes the “official” doctrine of civic virtue, with a readiness to die for the city both heroic and scarcely possible. Skepticism about civic virtue, especially in some Greek and Roman epitaphs, is explored, as is the hope of future life in the religion of Orphism. The chapter ends with discussion of Lucretius, Horace, Plato, and Aristotle.
Seth Lerer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226582405
- eISBN:
- 9780226582689
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226582689.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This book argues for a new relationship between music, myth, lyric, and drama in Shakespeare's last plays. In the last plays, Shakespeare dramatizes these tensions between the social and the ...
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This book argues for a new relationship between music, myth, lyric, and drama in Shakespeare's last plays. In the last plays, Shakespeare dramatizes these tensions between the social and the aesthetic in response to the changing roles of myth and lyricism in early seventeenth-century English culture. Looking closely at the complex roles of an Orpheus at court and on the stage, the book turns to the life and work of John Dowland, known in his time as the “English Orpheus.” The great lutenist of the Elizabethan period and one of the most widely published and performed musician of the Jacobean age, Dowland developed a powerful self-consciousness about performance, authorship, and craft. He pressed old myths into the service of new social critique, and disseminated a new set of ideas about the place of the performing self in a changed society. Here Shakespeare and Dowland emerge as parallel performing artists, both exploring lyric poetry and music as performed and as commanded. This book also explores the place of these late plays in the First Folio printing of Shakespeare’s works of 1623. It makes a case for the meaningful place of its late plays in their respective generic sections. Drawing on recent reassessments of the printing and reception history of the First Folio, and engaging with newly discovered evidence for early readerships, the book recovers the historical moments of Shakespeare’s immediate reception.Less
This book argues for a new relationship between music, myth, lyric, and drama in Shakespeare's last plays. In the last plays, Shakespeare dramatizes these tensions between the social and the aesthetic in response to the changing roles of myth and lyricism in early seventeenth-century English culture. Looking closely at the complex roles of an Orpheus at court and on the stage, the book turns to the life and work of John Dowland, known in his time as the “English Orpheus.” The great lutenist of the Elizabethan period and one of the most widely published and performed musician of the Jacobean age, Dowland developed a powerful self-consciousness about performance, authorship, and craft. He pressed old myths into the service of new social critique, and disseminated a new set of ideas about the place of the performing self in a changed society. Here Shakespeare and Dowland emerge as parallel performing artists, both exploring lyric poetry and music as performed and as commanded. This book also explores the place of these late plays in the First Folio printing of Shakespeare’s works of 1623. It makes a case for the meaningful place of its late plays in their respective generic sections. Drawing on recent reassessments of the printing and reception history of the First Folio, and engaging with newly discovered evidence for early readerships, the book recovers the historical moments of Shakespeare’s immediate reception.
Donald Prater
- Published in print:
- 1994
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198158912
- eISBN:
- 9780191673405
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198158912.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry, European Literature
Rilke took up residence at the Château de Muzot in 1921. He began to write a sequence of poems, which he called ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’. In three days he completed a cycle of 23, in a free handling of ...
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Rilke took up residence at the Château de Muzot in 1921. He began to write a sequence of poems, which he called ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’. In three days he completed a cycle of 23, in a free handling of the classic sonnet form. Rilke then began working on the Elegies again. In February, he started a continuation of the ‘Antistrophes’ to constitute the Fifth Elegy. After the completion of the Tenth Elegy, the Elegies was later called the Duino Elegies. On 23 February Rilke also completed the manuscript of the second part of his ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’, in its final form of 29 poems. He became gravely ill in 1926 and died on the morning of 29 December in Valmont.Less
Rilke took up residence at the Château de Muzot in 1921. He began to write a sequence of poems, which he called ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’. In three days he completed a cycle of 23, in a free handling of the classic sonnet form. Rilke then began working on the Elegies again. In February, he started a continuation of the ‘Antistrophes’ to constitute the Fifth Elegy. After the completion of the Tenth Elegy, the Elegies was later called the Duino Elegies. On 23 February Rilke also completed the manuscript of the second part of his ‘Sonnets to Orpheus’, in its final form of 29 poems. He became gravely ill in 1926 and died on the morning of 29 December in Valmont.
Rebecca Mitchell
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300208894
- eISBN:
- 9780300216493
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300208894.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This book explores how, amid the final tumultuous years of the Russian empire, music was viewed as a powerful force with the ability to overcome the social, political, and ethnic divisions that, it ...
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This book explores how, amid the final tumultuous years of the Russian empire, music was viewed as a powerful force with the ability to overcome the social, political, and ethnic divisions that, it was feared, were tearing the empire asunder. Drawing on German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s description of music as the “Dionysian” force and the “primal unity” that underpinned reality itself, Russian cultural elites (philosophers, historians, musicians and writers) argued that music promised an important means through which to forge a unified Russian identity within a society increasingly threatened by social discord, revolutionary upheaval, and growing nationalism. In this context of perceived modern disintegration and national uncertainty, music offered both a symbol of a transformed society (marked by social unity, spiritual depth, and cultural richness) and a means through which to achieve this transfiguration. This book offers a detailed examination of the philosophical claims surrounding music given voice by Russian cultural elites (“Nietzsche’s orphans”) with particular analysis of three Russian composers: Aleksandr Scriabin, Nikolai Medtner, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Though internally divided in their individual assessments of each composer’s significance, Nietzsche’s orphans sought in these musical figures a possible theurgic artist (or latter-day “Orpheus”) whose music would have the power to reunify society. This worldview of “musical metaphysics” ultimately proved incapable of reuniting Russian society, however, as music and philosophy both took on an increasingly nationalistic meaning in the cataclysm of the Great War, undermining the very unity that had been sought.Less
This book explores how, amid the final tumultuous years of the Russian empire, music was viewed as a powerful force with the ability to overcome the social, political, and ethnic divisions that, it was feared, were tearing the empire asunder. Drawing on German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s description of music as the “Dionysian” force and the “primal unity” that underpinned reality itself, Russian cultural elites (philosophers, historians, musicians and writers) argued that music promised an important means through which to forge a unified Russian identity within a society increasingly threatened by social discord, revolutionary upheaval, and growing nationalism. In this context of perceived modern disintegration and national uncertainty, music offered both a symbol of a transformed society (marked by social unity, spiritual depth, and cultural richness) and a means through which to achieve this transfiguration. This book offers a detailed examination of the philosophical claims surrounding music given voice by Russian cultural elites (“Nietzsche’s orphans”) with particular analysis of three Russian composers: Aleksandr Scriabin, Nikolai Medtner, and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Though internally divided in their individual assessments of each composer’s significance, Nietzsche’s orphans sought in these musical figures a possible theurgic artist (or latter-day “Orpheus”) whose music would have the power to reunify society. This worldview of “musical metaphysics” ultimately proved incapable of reuniting Russian society, however, as music and philosophy both took on an increasingly nationalistic meaning in the cataclysm of the Great War, undermining the very unity that had been sought.
Rebecca Mitchell
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300208894
- eISBN:
- 9780300216493
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300208894.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This chapter examines the philosophical sources and evolution of musical metaphysics in late imperial Russia. Derived from a combination of the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer ...
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This chapter examines the philosophical sources and evolution of musical metaphysics in late imperial Russia. Derived from a combination of the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer and Vladimir Solov’ev, this was an eclectic clash of ideas that evinced two fundamental components: music was seen as the ultimate form of unity; and it was believed to possess a theurgic power that could alter contemporary society. These assumptions gave rise to three basic beliefs that defined musical metaphysics: music could create social, cultural or political unity in response to the divisions of modernity; the experience of music offered a means of transcending linear temporality (musical time) through the experience of a “mystery”; and these powers of music were to be embodied in the music of a contemporary Russian “Orpheus”. The chapter concludes with an assessment of musical metaphysics’ shortcomings, embodied in the failure of Nietzsche’s orphans to bridge the social chasm between themselves and the common people (narod).Less
This chapter examines the philosophical sources and evolution of musical metaphysics in late imperial Russia. Derived from a combination of the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer and Vladimir Solov’ev, this was an eclectic clash of ideas that evinced two fundamental components: music was seen as the ultimate form of unity; and it was believed to possess a theurgic power that could alter contemporary society. These assumptions gave rise to three basic beliefs that defined musical metaphysics: music could create social, cultural or political unity in response to the divisions of modernity; the experience of music offered a means of transcending linear temporality (musical time) through the experience of a “mystery”; and these powers of music were to be embodied in the music of a contemporary Russian “Orpheus”. The chapter concludes with an assessment of musical metaphysics’ shortcomings, embodied in the failure of Nietzsche’s orphans to bridge the social chasm between themselves and the common people (narod).
Rebecca Mitchell
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780300208894
- eISBN:
- 9780300216493
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300208894.003.0007
- Subject:
- History, Russian and Former Soviet Union History
This chapter emphasizes the central place music held in late imperial Russian cultural discourse, where it served both as a symbol of, and possible means for, forging a unified Russian identity. It ...
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This chapter emphasizes the central place music held in late imperial Russian cultural discourse, where it served both as a symbol of, and possible means for, forging a unified Russian identity. It defines the central concepts of “Nietzsche’s orphans” (an aesthetic community of individuals from disparate social and professional backgrounds who shared the belief that music provided a means of reunifying a society increasingly rent asunder by the strains of modernity) and the “Search for Orpheus” (the expectation of a Russian composer whose theurgic power would provide the basis for unifying society in the modern age). Multiple possible interpretations of Russian identity that vied for preeminence in the final years of the empire (imperial, ethnic-national, social, religious) are introduced, as is the perceived division between educated society and the Russian narod.Less
This chapter emphasizes the central place music held in late imperial Russian cultural discourse, where it served both as a symbol of, and possible means for, forging a unified Russian identity. It defines the central concepts of “Nietzsche’s orphans” (an aesthetic community of individuals from disparate social and professional backgrounds who shared the belief that music provided a means of reunifying a society increasingly rent asunder by the strains of modernity) and the “Search for Orpheus” (the expectation of a Russian composer whose theurgic power would provide the basis for unifying society in the modern age). Multiple possible interpretations of Russian identity that vied for preeminence in the final years of the empire (imperial, ethnic-national, social, religious) are introduced, as is the perceived division between educated society and the Russian narod.
Tamara Levitz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199730162
- eISBN:
- 9780199932467
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730162.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter examines how Gide revolutionized the expression of male same-sex desire in the writing strategies he developed for the narcissus plucking moment in Perséphone. In his treatise on ...
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This chapter examines how Gide revolutionized the expression of male same-sex desire in the writing strategies he developed for the narcissus plucking moment in Perséphone. In his treatise on pédérastie, Corydon, Gide countered the dominant belief of his time that desire was always heterosexual by proposing that male same-sex desire could be directed toward the goal of pleasure rather than reproduction. Gide established his point of view against the unrelenting insults of his contemporaries, however—a framework that determined how he positioned himself as a writer. In Perséphone, he coupled Persephone’s same-sex desire with a simultaneous need to fulfil social obligation, and framed both actions against the exclusionary French sexual politics of his day. Persephone’s attraction to the underworld reflects Gide’s interpretation of Orpheus’s “backward glance,” and his understanding of same-sex desire as taking place within a colonial frame. His bifurcated stance leads to a fragmented writing style or “bricolage” in the narcissus-plucking scene.Less
This chapter examines how Gide revolutionized the expression of male same-sex desire in the writing strategies he developed for the narcissus plucking moment in Perséphone. In his treatise on pédérastie, Corydon, Gide countered the dominant belief of his time that desire was always heterosexual by proposing that male same-sex desire could be directed toward the goal of pleasure rather than reproduction. Gide established his point of view against the unrelenting insults of his contemporaries, however—a framework that determined how he positioned himself as a writer. In Perséphone, he coupled Persephone’s same-sex desire with a simultaneous need to fulfil social obligation, and framed both actions against the exclusionary French sexual politics of his day. Persephone’s attraction to the underworld reflects Gide’s interpretation of Orpheus’s “backward glance,” and his understanding of same-sex desire as taking place within a colonial frame. His bifurcated stance leads to a fragmented writing style or “bricolage” in the narcissus-plucking scene.
Tamara Levitz
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199730162
- eISBN:
- 9780199932467
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730162.003.0008
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Chapter 8 examines Persephone’s rebirth and return to the underworld with the goal of understanding what its emancipatory promise and historicity—or relationship to the past, present, and ...
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Chapter 8 examines Persephone’s rebirth and return to the underworld with the goal of understanding what its emancipatory promise and historicity—or relationship to the past, present, and future—tells us about the politics of modernist neoclassicism. Gide introduces the cardboard figure of Triptolemus as a symbol of renewal he associates with the Soviet Union, and with Orpheus’s “backward glance” and the anxious politics of his pédérastie. Rubinstein, Copeau, and Stravinsky, in contrast, think of Persephone’s rebirth in terms of the resurrection of Christ. Stravinsky interprets resurrection from Suvchinsky’s Eurasianist perspective as related to the notion of cyclical history, and to the political idea of Russia resurrecting as a theocracy after the Bolshevik revolution. In his music he realizes the temporal idea of the simultaneity of past, present, and future by composing music that functions as a “vitalist” sculpture, and that can be compared to Aby Warburg’s notion of the Pathosformel. The chapter ends with reflections on how Perséphone failed on the night of its premiere, and the heterogeneity of interpretations it elicited.Less
Chapter 8 examines Persephone’s rebirth and return to the underworld with the goal of understanding what its emancipatory promise and historicity—or relationship to the past, present, and future—tells us about the politics of modernist neoclassicism. Gide introduces the cardboard figure of Triptolemus as a symbol of renewal he associates with the Soviet Union, and with Orpheus’s “backward glance” and the anxious politics of his pédérastie. Rubinstein, Copeau, and Stravinsky, in contrast, think of Persephone’s rebirth in terms of the resurrection of Christ. Stravinsky interprets resurrection from Suvchinsky’s Eurasianist perspective as related to the notion of cyclical history, and to the political idea of Russia resurrecting as a theocracy after the Bolshevik revolution. In his music he realizes the temporal idea of the simultaneity of past, present, and future by composing music that functions as a “vitalist” sculpture, and that can be compared to Aby Warburg’s notion of the Pathosformel. The chapter ends with reflections on how Perséphone failed on the night of its premiere, and the heterogeneity of interpretations it elicited.
Lorna Hardwick and James I. Porter
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199582969
- eISBN:
- 9780191731198
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199582969.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Chapter 1 argued that it is possible to discern the ‘national’ Virgils standing behind each woman's invocation of his work; further evidence of Virgil's absorption into the general culture is his ...
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Chapter 1 argued that it is possible to discern the ‘national’ Virgils standing behind each woman's invocation of his work; further evidence of Virgil's absorption into the general culture is his strong presence within the work of contemporary women poets. He enters women's poetry through female rewritings of the Orpheus myth, but also through female responses to the figure of the Sibyl, the descent into the Underworld, and exile within a ruined city. This chapter examines female responses to the myth of Orpheus before analysing the various references to the Aeneid made by the British poets U. A. Fanthorpe and Josephine Balmer.Less
Chapter 1 argued that it is possible to discern the ‘national’ Virgils standing behind each woman's invocation of his work; further evidence of Virgil's absorption into the general culture is his strong presence within the work of contemporary women poets. He enters women's poetry through female rewritings of the Orpheus myth, but also through female responses to the figure of the Sibyl, the descent into the Underworld, and exile within a ruined city. This chapter examines female responses to the myth of Orpheus before analysing the various references to the Aeneid made by the British poets U. A. Fanthorpe and Josephine Balmer.
Alex Hardie
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199242399
- eISBN:
- 9780191714078
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199242399.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Ancient Religions
This chapter examines the role of music in mystery cults. Looking at relationships between the Muses, Orpheus, Dionysus, and initiation rites such as those at Eleusis, it argues that choreia was an ...
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This chapter examines the role of music in mystery cults. Looking at relationships between the Muses, Orpheus, Dionysus, and initiation rites such as those at Eleusis, it argues that choreia was an essential component in bringing about that contact with the divine which initiands sought. Also significant is the fact that Mnemosyne, mother of the Muses, plays an important part in the eschatology of mystery religions, thus establishing a link between immortality in Muse-inspired poetry and the blessed afterlife promised by initiation. The chapter further argues that mousike in such cults was understood to contain cosmic and eschatalogical symbolism through which the harmony of the cosmos could be revealed. Hence, poetic claims to divine wisdom inspired by the Muses should not be regarded merely as metaphor: the boundaries between the ‘sacral’ and the ‘literary’ were less clear-cut than is commonly supposed.Less
This chapter examines the role of music in mystery cults. Looking at relationships between the Muses, Orpheus, Dionysus, and initiation rites such as those at Eleusis, it argues that choreia was an essential component in bringing about that contact with the divine which initiands sought. Also significant is the fact that Mnemosyne, mother of the Muses, plays an important part in the eschatology of mystery religions, thus establishing a link between immortality in Muse-inspired poetry and the blessed afterlife promised by initiation. The chapter further argues that mousike in such cults was understood to contain cosmic and eschatalogical symbolism through which the harmony of the cosmos could be revealed. Hence, poetic claims to divine wisdom inspired by the Muses should not be regarded merely as metaphor: the boundaries between the ‘sacral’ and the ‘literary’ were less clear-cut than is commonly supposed.
Gian Biagio Conte and S. J. Harrison
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199287017
- eISBN:
- 9780191713262
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199287017.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Poetry and Poets: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses Aristaeus, Orpheus, and the Georgics. Reacting favourably to Jasper Griffin's justly influential article on Georgics 4, it agrees that readers need an interpretation that can ...
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This chapter discusses Aristaeus, Orpheus, and the Georgics. Reacting favourably to Jasper Griffin's justly influential article on Georgics 4, it agrees that readers need an interpretation that can encompass the whole of the Georgics and show its essential unity. The chapter also reinforces the crucial original perception that Aristaeus is an extrapolation on the mythical level of the farmer of the Georgics and makes the equally convincing argument that the Aristaeus story consciously echoes the myths of Platonic dialogues in enacting on the mythical level and in final climactic position the essential message of the didactic work. Centrally important too is the analysis of the Alexandrian narrative technique of the Aristaeus-episode, arguing incontrovertibly that the juxtaposition of two structurally similar but crucially different stories is a key part of interpretation, just as it is in Catullus 64.Less
This chapter discusses Aristaeus, Orpheus, and the Georgics. Reacting favourably to Jasper Griffin's justly influential article on Georgics 4, it agrees that readers need an interpretation that can encompass the whole of the Georgics and show its essential unity. The chapter also reinforces the crucial original perception that Aristaeus is an extrapolation on the mythical level of the farmer of the Georgics and makes the equally convincing argument that the Aristaeus story consciously echoes the myths of Platonic dialogues in enacting on the mythical level and in final climactic position the essential message of the didactic work. Centrally important too is the analysis of the Alexandrian narrative technique of the Aristaeus-episode, arguing incontrovertibly that the juxtaposition of two structurally similar but crucially different stories is a key part of interpretation, just as it is in Catullus 64.
William D. Furley
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199589036
- eISBN:
- 9780191728983
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199589036.003.0010
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter explores the relationship of the Homeric Hymns to other early hexameter hymns and their possible genesis from theogonic hymns and cult myth. Comparison is made between the Hymns and ...
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This chapter explores the relationship of the Homeric Hymns to other early hexameter hymns and their possible genesis from theogonic hymns and cult myth. Comparison is made between the Hymns and Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days, but also to the evidence for an Orphic hymnic theogony contained in the Derveni papyrus and the mock bird theogony in Aristophanes' Birds, among other texts. It is suggested that the Homeric Hymns may have developed as epicized elaborations of theogonic hymns.Less
This chapter explores the relationship of the Homeric Hymns to other early hexameter hymns and their possible genesis from theogonic hymns and cult myth. Comparison is made between the Hymns and Hesiod's Theogony and Works and Days, but also to the evidence for an Orphic hymnic theogony contained in the Derveni papyrus and the mock bird theogony in Aristophanes' Birds, among other texts. It is suggested that the Homeric Hymns may have developed as epicized elaborations of theogonic hymns.
Annabel Robinson
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199242337
- eISBN:
- 9780191714108
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199242337.003.0008
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This chapter discusses Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion and its reception. It describes Harrison's relationship with Arthur and May Verrall, and also the London stage production of Murray's ...
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This chapter discusses Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion and its reception. It describes Harrison's relationship with Arthur and May Verrall, and also the London stage production of Murray's translation of Hippolytus, for which Harrison designed images of Artemis and Aphrodite. Two short books are noted: a popular book on Greek mythology (The Religion of Ancient Greece) in response to a request from the publisher Constable, and Primitive Athens as Described by Thucydides at the request of Wilhelm Dörpfeld, whom she met again when she presented a paper at the International Congress of Archaeology in Athens in 1905. Her struggle with depression, the death of her friend Ellen Darwin, uncertainty about her own future, and health problems are described.Less
This chapter discusses Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion and its reception. It describes Harrison's relationship with Arthur and May Verrall, and also the London stage production of Murray's translation of Hippolytus, for which Harrison designed images of Artemis and Aphrodite. Two short books are noted: a popular book on Greek mythology (The Religion of Ancient Greece) in response to a request from the publisher Constable, and Primitive Athens as Described by Thucydides at the request of Wilhelm Dörpfeld, whom she met again when she presented a paper at the International Congress of Archaeology in Athens in 1905. Her struggle with depression, the death of her friend Ellen Darwin, uncertainty about her own future, and health problems are described.
Shane Butler
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780226656397
- eISBN:
- 9780226656427
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226656427.003.0009
- Subject:
- Music, Performing Practice/Studies
For Lacanian critics like Mladen Dolar, the voice as a bearer of deep meaning is a "structural illusion," the product of unfulfillable longing for a time and a world before language. Such a view, the ...
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For Lacanian critics like Mladen Dolar, the voice as a bearer of deep meaning is a "structural illusion," the product of unfulfillable longing for a time and a world before language. Such a view, the author of this chapter argues, is part of what we might call the "language myth" that shaped so much critical thought in the last century. But what if we turn to older myths? The voice, in fact, is key to the roles of several major figures in Greek and Roman mythology, such as Echo, Orpheus, and Philomela. This essay revisits these three myths, in the versions of the Latin poet Ovid, inviting us to close our eyes to Narcissus for a while, in order to listen for what he and we have been missing. What we hear is not just beautiful music, but a rebuke of Lacanian and other twentieth-century views of the voice. Here instead are sounds that index the bodies from which they come, reminding us that there can be no meaning, linguistic or otherwise, without matter.Less
For Lacanian critics like Mladen Dolar, the voice as a bearer of deep meaning is a "structural illusion," the product of unfulfillable longing for a time and a world before language. Such a view, the author of this chapter argues, is part of what we might call the "language myth" that shaped so much critical thought in the last century. But what if we turn to older myths? The voice, in fact, is key to the roles of several major figures in Greek and Roman mythology, such as Echo, Orpheus, and Philomela. This essay revisits these three myths, in the versions of the Latin poet Ovid, inviting us to close our eyes to Narcissus for a while, in order to listen for what he and we have been missing. What we hear is not just beautiful music, but a rebuke of Lacanian and other twentieth-century views of the voice. Here instead are sounds that index the bodies from which they come, reminding us that there can be no meaning, linguistic or otherwise, without matter.
Seth Lerer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226582405
- eISBN:
- 9780226582689
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226582689.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter outlines the scope and critical approach of the book. It reviews the history of the idea of the lyric in early modern English verse, the impact of Ovid on Shakespeare and his ...
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This chapter outlines the scope and critical approach of the book. It reviews the history of the idea of the lyric in early modern English verse, the impact of Ovid on Shakespeare and his contemporaries (especially through Arthur Golding’s English translation), the resonances of John Dowland’s work and career, and the possibilities of a meaningful order of play arrangement in the First Folio.Less
This chapter outlines the scope and critical approach of the book. It reviews the history of the idea of the lyric in early modern English verse, the impact of Ovid on Shakespeare and his contemporaries (especially through Arthur Golding’s English translation), the resonances of John Dowland’s work and career, and the possibilities of a meaningful order of play arrangement in the First Folio.
Seth Lerer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226582405
- eISBN:
- 9780226582689
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226582689.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter argues for a new understanding of Henry VIII as a play consciously concerned with the theatricality of rule and the language of the stage. It begins with Henry Wotton’s famous account of ...
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This chapter argues for a new understanding of Henry VIII as a play consciously concerned with the theatricality of rule and the language of the stage. It begins with Henry Wotton’s famous account of the burning of the Globe theater, during a performance of the play, as not just a historical but also a critical and imaginative template for understanding the meta-theatricality of Henry VIII. In addition, the chapter explores the figure of Wolsey as a tragic figure out of older dramatic traditions (Marlowe, as well as earlier Shakespeare), and it addresses Queen Katherine’s call for Orphic music as an attempt to turn to performed artistry in the face of political and personal loss.Less
This chapter argues for a new understanding of Henry VIII as a play consciously concerned with the theatricality of rule and the language of the stage. It begins with Henry Wotton’s famous account of the burning of the Globe theater, during a performance of the play, as not just a historical but also a critical and imaginative template for understanding the meta-theatricality of Henry VIII. In addition, the chapter explores the figure of Wolsey as a tragic figure out of older dramatic traditions (Marlowe, as well as earlier Shakespeare), and it addresses Queen Katherine’s call for Orphic music as an attempt to turn to performed artistry in the face of political and personal loss.
Seth Lerer
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780226582405
- eISBN:
- 9780226582689
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226582689.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
This chapter presents Cymbeline as a play that dramatizes tensions between lyrical performance and the bad audience. Focusing on the figure of Cloten, the chapter sees him as a kind of Midas-like ...
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This chapter presents Cymbeline as a play that dramatizes tensions between lyrical performance and the bad audience. Focusing on the figure of Cloten, the chapter sees him as a kind of Midas-like figure: one who judges poorly in the face of musical beauty. The chapter also argues that the poetry of the Roman lyricist Catullus features prominently in the play: as a source for speeches, but also as a model for a distinctively urbane Roman lyric tradition in a play politically concerned with the relationship of ancient Britain to the Empire.Less
This chapter presents Cymbeline as a play that dramatizes tensions between lyrical performance and the bad audience. Focusing on the figure of Cloten, the chapter sees him as a kind of Midas-like figure: one who judges poorly in the face of musical beauty. The chapter also argues that the poetry of the Roman lyricist Catullus features prominently in the play: as a source for speeches, but also as a model for a distinctively urbane Roman lyric tradition in a play politically concerned with the relationship of ancient Britain to the Empire.
