Constanze Guthenke
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199231850
- eISBN:
- 9780191716188
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231850.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This book offers a fresh look at one of the most tenacious features of Romantic Hellenism: its fascination with modern Greece as material and ideal alike. It suggests that literary representations of ...
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This book offers a fresh look at one of the most tenacious features of Romantic Hellenism: its fascination with modern Greece as material and ideal alike. It suggests that literary representations of modern Greece, by both foreign and Greek writers, run on notions of a significant landscape. Landscape, as a critical term, is itself the product of the period when Greece assumed increasing importance as a territorial, political and modern entity. The implied authority of nature, in turn, follows its own dynamic and highly ambivalent logic of representation. Greece operated as a material symbol, one that shared the brittle structure of the Romantic image. To explicate this enabling structure this study draws on the critical writings of Herder, Schiller and the early Romantics, while grounding mainly German philhellenic writing in its cultural and political context. Main authors discussed are Friedrich Hölderlin and Wilhelm Müller, but also the first generation of Greek writers in the new nation state after 1821: Alexandros Rizos Rangavis, Panagiotis Soutsos, Andreas Kalvos and Dionysios Solomos. To enlist authors challenged to write from within the place of Greece allows not only a new take on the problematic imagery of Greece, but also gives a new dimension to the study of Hellenism as a trans-national movement.Less
This book offers a fresh look at one of the most tenacious features of Romantic Hellenism: its fascination with modern Greece as material and ideal alike. It suggests that literary representations of modern Greece, by both foreign and Greek writers, run on notions of a significant landscape. Landscape, as a critical term, is itself the product of the period when Greece assumed increasing importance as a territorial, political and modern entity. The implied authority of nature, in turn, follows its own dynamic and highly ambivalent logic of representation. Greece operated as a material symbol, one that shared the brittle structure of the Romantic image. To explicate this enabling structure this study draws on the critical writings of Herder, Schiller and the early Romantics, while grounding mainly German philhellenic writing in its cultural and political context. Main authors discussed are Friedrich Hölderlin and Wilhelm Müller, but also the first generation of Greek writers in the new nation state after 1821: Alexandros Rizos Rangavis, Panagiotis Soutsos, Andreas Kalvos and Dionysios Solomos. To enlist authors challenged to write from within the place of Greece allows not only a new take on the problematic imagery of Greece, but also gives a new dimension to the study of Hellenism as a trans-national movement.
Constanze Güthenke
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199231850
- eISBN:
- 9780191716188
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231850.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
One of the guiding questions of this study is whether a change took place in the representation of the Greek land with the emergence of the Greek nation state. This chapter looks at the strategies ...
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One of the guiding questions of this study is whether a change took place in the representation of the Greek land with the emergence of the Greek nation state. This chapter looks at the strategies that politicize Greek nature and make it relevant to a German context after the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Greece was declared different from other national movements, and, according to the Romantic correspondence with nature, it was not the Greeks but Greek nature that liberated itself, enhancing its special position. The same imagery allowed for reflection on the German poetic voice and its standpoint in a politically conservative climate. One of the most prominent textual strategies is the use and notion of folk song. The main textual body is the popular poetry of Wilhelm Müller, supplemented with material from political pamphlets and geographical accounts.Less
One of the guiding questions of this study is whether a change took place in the representation of the Greek land with the emergence of the Greek nation state. This chapter looks at the strategies that politicize Greek nature and make it relevant to a German context after the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Greece was declared different from other national movements, and, according to the Romantic correspondence with nature, it was not the Greeks but Greek nature that liberated itself, enhancing its special position. The same imagery allowed for reflection on the German poetic voice and its standpoint in a politically conservative climate. One of the most prominent textual strategies is the use and notion of folk song. The main textual body is the popular poetry of Wilhelm Müller, supplemented with material from political pamphlets and geographical accounts.
Maurizio Isabella
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199570676
- eISBN:
- 9780191721991
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570676.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
Exile represented a fundamental experience in shaping Italian national identity. This book investigates the contribution of the Italian exile community in Europe and Latin America in the post ...
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Exile represented a fundamental experience in shaping Italian national identity. This book investigates the contribution of the Italian exile community in Europe and Latin America in the post Napoleonic era to imagining a new Italian political and economic community. By looking at the writings of such exiles, the book challenges recent historiography regarding the lack of genuine liberal culture in the Risorgimento. The book argues that these émigrés' involvement in debates with British, continental, and American intellectuals, hitherto ignored in the historiography, points to the emergence of liberalism and Romanticism as international ideologies shared by a community of patriots from Southern Europe as well as Latin America, and demonstrates that the Risorgimento first developed as a variation upon such global trends.Less
Exile represented a fundamental experience in shaping Italian national identity. This book investigates the contribution of the Italian exile community in Europe and Latin America in the post Napoleonic era to imagining a new Italian political and economic community. By looking at the writings of such exiles, the book challenges recent historiography regarding the lack of genuine liberal culture in the Risorgimento. The book argues that these émigrés' involvement in debates with British, continental, and American intellectuals, hitherto ignored in the historiography, points to the emergence of liberalism and Romanticism as international ideologies shared by a community of patriots from Southern Europe as well as Latin America, and demonstrates that the Risorgimento first developed as a variation upon such global trends.
Maurizio Isabella
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199570676
- eISBN:
- 9780191721991
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199570676.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter assesses the distinctive features of the exiles' Philhellenism as compared to its British and continental versions. It considers the contrasting in attitudes of Italian exiles and ...
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This chapter assesses the distinctive features of the exiles' Philhellenism as compared to its British and continental versions. It considers the contrasting in attitudes of Italian exiles and British liberals towards Greek and Mediterranean freedom. It argues that while the Italian exiles considered Greece to be a European country ready for independence and representative institutions, and justified any means which would achieve this goal, the Benthamites orientalized Greece, depicted it as a backward Asian country, and believed that it needed to be ‘educated’ before it could become independent. The greatest contribution of the Italian volunteers to European Philhellenism was the notion of Mediterranean sisterhood between Italy and Greece and the idea that underpinned Italian patriotism until the end of the century. The significance heroic martyrdom of Santorre di Santarosa, who became the most famous European Philhellenic icon after Byron, lay precisely in its capacity to combine the Risorgimento and the Greek struggle for emancipation in a single movement for freedom.Less
This chapter assesses the distinctive features of the exiles' Philhellenism as compared to its British and continental versions. It considers the contrasting in attitudes of Italian exiles and British liberals towards Greek and Mediterranean freedom. It argues that while the Italian exiles considered Greece to be a European country ready for independence and representative institutions, and justified any means which would achieve this goal, the Benthamites orientalized Greece, depicted it as a backward Asian country, and believed that it needed to be ‘educated’ before it could become independent. The greatest contribution of the Italian volunteers to European Philhellenism was the notion of Mediterranean sisterhood between Italy and Greece and the idea that underpinned Italian patriotism until the end of the century. The significance heroic martyrdom of Santorre di Santarosa, who became the most famous European Philhellenic icon after Byron, lay precisely in its capacity to combine the Risorgimento and the Greek struggle for emancipation in a single movement for freedom.
Peter Thonemann
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199652143
- eISBN:
- 9780191745935
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199652143.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE, Archaeology: Classical
This chapter offers a new reconstruction of Alexander the Great's fragmentary edict to Priene (I. Priene 1; Rhodes–Osborne, GHI 86, probably of 334 bc). Alexander's edict, concerning the status of a ...
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This chapter offers a new reconstruction of Alexander the Great's fragmentary edict to Priene (I. Priene 1; Rhodes–Osborne, GHI 86, probably of 334 bc). Alexander's edict, concerning the status of a number of dependent communities in the vicinity of Priene, such as Naulochon, has played a prominent role in modern scholarship on Alexander's Philhellenism, the nature and extent of ‘royal land’ in the former Achaemenid empire, the civic life of the Greek poleis of western Asia Minor in the early Hellenistic period, and ancient archival practices. Much of this modern scholarship, however, is based on questionable restorations of fragmentary passages in the edict. This chapter offers alternative reconstructions of three critical clauses in the edict, which (if correct) shed a new light on Alexander's policies towards the Greek cities of Asia Minor in the earliest days of his Asiatic campaign.Less
This chapter offers a new reconstruction of Alexander the Great's fragmentary edict to Priene (I. Priene 1; Rhodes–Osborne, GHI 86, probably of 334 bc). Alexander's edict, concerning the status of a number of dependent communities in the vicinity of Priene, such as Naulochon, has played a prominent role in modern scholarship on Alexander's Philhellenism, the nature and extent of ‘royal land’ in the former Achaemenid empire, the civic life of the Greek poleis of western Asia Minor in the early Hellenistic period, and ancient archival practices. Much of this modern scholarship, however, is based on questionable restorations of fragmentary passages in the edict. This chapter offers alternative reconstructions of three critical clauses in the edict, which (if correct) shed a new light on Alexander's policies towards the Greek cities of Asia Minor in the earliest days of his Asiatic campaign.
Karine V. Walther
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469625393
- eISBN:
- 9781469625416
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469625393.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Chapter 1 examines American reactions to the 1821 Greek War of Independence and the Cretan Insurrection of 1866-1869. Prompted by American philhellenes, politicians, religious organizations, and ...
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Chapter 1 examines American reactions to the 1821 Greek War of Independence and the Cretan Insurrection of 1866-1869. Prompted by American philhellenes, politicians, religious organizations, and activists argued vehemently for American intervention to help their “Christian brothers” in Greece and Crete. In their push for intervention, Americans cited the need for humanitarian intervention and based their arguments on developing concepts of international law to counter arguments against non-entanglement, as spelled out in the Monroe Doctrine and advanced most forcefully by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. Undeterred by such policies, the American philhellenic movement, led by men such as Edward Everett, Samuel Gridley Howe, and Daniel Webster, helped galvanize the American public to aid the Greeks.Less
Chapter 1 examines American reactions to the 1821 Greek War of Independence and the Cretan Insurrection of 1866-1869. Prompted by American philhellenes, politicians, religious organizations, and activists argued vehemently for American intervention to help their “Christian brothers” in Greece and Crete. In their push for intervention, Americans cited the need for humanitarian intervention and based their arguments on developing concepts of international law to counter arguments against non-entanglement, as spelled out in the Monroe Doctrine and advanced most forcefully by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. Undeterred by such policies, the American philhellenic movement, led by men such as Edward Everett, Samuel Gridley Howe, and Daniel Webster, helped galvanize the American public to aid the Greeks.
Charles Issawi
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195118131
- eISBN:
- 9780199854554
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195118131.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Middle East History
The chapter discusses how Shelley, a marvelous lyric poet, writer of famous poems like “Prometheus” and “Ode to the West Wind” looked at foreign culture. He was also a knowledgeable scientist and an ...
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The chapter discusses how Shelley, a marvelous lyric poet, writer of famous poems like “Prometheus” and “Ode to the West Wind” looked at foreign culture. He was also a knowledgeable scientist and an accomplished linguist. He was passionately interested in politics, and he was a voracious and insatiable reader. Being very well read in philosophy, history, and politics, his interest in the Near East arose from his passionate Philhellenism. He became an ardent champion of Greek independence. His love and admiration for the ancient Greeks was one of his strongest passions and like many passionate Hellenists, he took a dim view of modern Greeks. He was an opponent of Ottoman rule but his interest extended beyond that and he made many acute observations on India, Persia, Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and proto-Zionism.Less
The chapter discusses how Shelley, a marvelous lyric poet, writer of famous poems like “Prometheus” and “Ode to the West Wind” looked at foreign culture. He was also a knowledgeable scientist and an accomplished linguist. He was passionately interested in politics, and he was a voracious and insatiable reader. Being very well read in philosophy, history, and politics, his interest in the Near East arose from his passionate Philhellenism. He became an ardent champion of Greek independence. His love and admiration for the ancient Greeks was one of his strongest passions and like many passionate Hellenists, he took a dim view of modern Greeks. He was an opponent of Ottoman rule but his interest extended beyond that and he made many acute observations on India, Persia, Egypt, Syria, Arabia, and proto-Zionism.
Elizabeth Amann
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781474481588
- eISBN:
- 9781399501866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474481588.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Elizabeth Amann’s essay considers the representation of the Greek War of Independence in a romantic novel published in Spain in 1830: Estanislao de Cosca Vayo’s two-volume Grecia, ó la doncella de ...
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Elizabeth Amann’s essay considers the representation of the Greek War of Independence in a romantic novel published in Spain in 1830: Estanislao de Cosca Vayo’s two-volume Grecia, ó la doncella de Missolonghi. Although Spain had also experienced a liberal revolution in 1820, an absolutist regime had been reestablished in 1823 through French intervention, and discussion of the events in Greece was heavily censored. Cosca Vayo’s work seems to be the only original novel written in Spanish on the subject. It is unusual in that, unlike most European Philhellenic texts in which a white European man saves a Greek heroine from a sexually predatory Ottoman, its plot centers around a love story between a Greek woman and a Turkish man. Amann argues that this plot and Cosca Vayo’s vision of the uprising in general are colored by his view of Spain’s history of domination by a Muslim other.Less
Elizabeth Amann’s essay considers the representation of the Greek War of Independence in a romantic novel published in Spain in 1830: Estanislao de Cosca Vayo’s two-volume Grecia, ó la doncella de Missolonghi. Although Spain had also experienced a liberal revolution in 1820, an absolutist regime had been reestablished in 1823 through French intervention, and discussion of the events in Greece was heavily censored. Cosca Vayo’s work seems to be the only original novel written in Spanish on the subject. It is unusual in that, unlike most European Philhellenic texts in which a white European man saves a Greek heroine from a sexually predatory Ottoman, its plot centers around a love story between a Greek woman and a Turkish man. Amann argues that this plot and Cosca Vayo’s vision of the uprising in general are colored by his view of Spain’s history of domination by a Muslim other.
Nicholas Halmi
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474439411
- eISBN:
- 9781474453806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439411.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
The ageing Goethe was fascinated with Byron whom he called the greatest poetic talent. Though suspicious of Byron’s Philhellenism, Goethe found in Byron an openness to encounter non-English cultures, ...
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The ageing Goethe was fascinated with Byron whom he called the greatest poetic talent. Though suspicious of Byron’s Philhellenism, Goethe found in Byron an openness to encounter non-English cultures, an attentiveness to national histories and in interest in the relationship of the individual to social life. Byron’s self-contextualising, self-historicising narrative poems constitute a parallel to Goethe’s own literary campaigns for cross-cultural engagement in the 1810s and 1820s and, despite Byron’s alienation from England, offer hope for the prospects of what Goethe was to call “world literature”.Less
The ageing Goethe was fascinated with Byron whom he called the greatest poetic talent. Though suspicious of Byron’s Philhellenism, Goethe found in Byron an openness to encounter non-English cultures, an attentiveness to national histories and in interest in the relationship of the individual to social life. Byron’s self-contextualising, self-historicising narrative poems constitute a parallel to Goethe’s own literary campaigns for cross-cultural engagement in the 1810s and 1820s and, despite Byron’s alienation from England, offer hope for the prospects of what Goethe was to call “world literature”.
Stephen Minta
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781474439411
- eISBN:
- 9781474453806
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9781474439411.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
Greece, in Byron’s work and life, seems so central, so symbolically tied to ideas of freedom and commitment, that it is easy to forget how marginal Greece was in the Europe of Byron’s time. Byron’s ...
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Greece, in Byron’s work and life, seems so central, so symbolically tied to ideas of freedom and commitment, that it is easy to forget how marginal Greece was in the Europe of Byron’s time. Byron’s East is an anomalous composite, framed by four elements: the imperial force of the Ottoman Empire, the framing structure of classical Greece, a loosely defined Albanian presence operating both within the limits of the Ottoman Empire, but in some ways resistant to it, and what can be described as ‘modern Greece’. In reconstructing this network of Turkish/European oppositional attitudes, we can see with greater clarity how Byron approached his Giaour and to what extent Byron’s difficulties in escaping from the traditional representation of classical Greece are only partially resolved in Childe Harold.Less
Greece, in Byron’s work and life, seems so central, so symbolically tied to ideas of freedom and commitment, that it is easy to forget how marginal Greece was in the Europe of Byron’s time. Byron’s East is an anomalous composite, framed by four elements: the imperial force of the Ottoman Empire, the framing structure of classical Greece, a loosely defined Albanian presence operating both within the limits of the Ottoman Empire, but in some ways resistant to it, and what can be described as ‘modern Greece’. In reconstructing this network of Turkish/European oppositional attitudes, we can see with greater clarity how Byron approached his Giaour and to what extent Byron’s difficulties in escaping from the traditional representation of classical Greece are only partially resolved in Childe Harold.
Erika Fischer-Lichte
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- June 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199651634
- eISBN:
- 9780191801440
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199651634.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The book is devoted to the remarkable phenomenon of Greek tragedy’s endurance on German stages during the last 200 years. It examines how performances of Greek tragedies since 1800 contributed to the ...
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The book is devoted to the remarkable phenomenon of Greek tragedy’s endurance on German stages during the last 200 years. It examines how performances of Greek tragedies since 1800 contributed to the emergence, stabilization, and transformation of the German Bildungsbürgertum’s (educated middle class) cultural identity. Its focus lies on performances that either introduced a new theatre aesthetics or a new image of ancient Greece, or both. Key here are the truly transformative moments as well as the cultural dynamics involved. In this context, the overall political situation of the 200 years between the French Revolution and the peaceful revolution of 1989 in the German Democratic Republic plays a central role. It resulted in the reunification of the two German states, both founded in 1949 in the aftermath of the Second World War and at the beginning of the cold war. What was/is the purpose and role of performances of Greek tragedies in such a political climate? Did they help to bring about changes or did they result from changes that were already taking place? Were the performances seen to be welcoming, opposing, or even negating these changes? This study supplies answers to these questions by shedding some light on the underexplored relationship between the Philhellenism and the theatromania of the German Bildungsbürgertum, which has been brought into a sharper focus in performances of ancient Greek tragedies since the beginning of the nineteenth century. In short, it attempts to understand tragedy’s endurance.Less
The book is devoted to the remarkable phenomenon of Greek tragedy’s endurance on German stages during the last 200 years. It examines how performances of Greek tragedies since 1800 contributed to the emergence, stabilization, and transformation of the German Bildungsbürgertum’s (educated middle class) cultural identity. Its focus lies on performances that either introduced a new theatre aesthetics or a new image of ancient Greece, or both. Key here are the truly transformative moments as well as the cultural dynamics involved. In this context, the overall political situation of the 200 years between the French Revolution and the peaceful revolution of 1989 in the German Democratic Republic plays a central role. It resulted in the reunification of the two German states, both founded in 1949 in the aftermath of the Second World War and at the beginning of the cold war. What was/is the purpose and role of performances of Greek tragedies in such a political climate? Did they help to bring about changes or did they result from changes that were already taking place? Were the performances seen to be welcoming, opposing, or even negating these changes? This study supplies answers to these questions by shedding some light on the underexplored relationship between the Philhellenism and the theatromania of the German Bildungsbürgertum, which has been brought into a sharper focus in performances of ancient Greek tragedies since the beginning of the nineteenth century. In short, it attempts to understand tragedy’s endurance.
Larry Wolff
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780804795777
- eISBN:
- 9780804799652
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804795777.003.0011
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter considers the flourishing of operas on Turkish themes in Restoration France, including Rossini’s Turkish operas in Paris—especially as Rossini became director of the Théâtre-Italien in ...
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This chapter considers the flourishing of operas on Turkish themes in Restoration France, including Rossini’s Turkish operas in Paris—especially as Rossini became director of the Théâtre-Italien in the 1820s. His most important contribution to Turkishness in Paris was his refashioning of Maometto Secondo as Le Siège de Corinthe for the Paris Opéra in 1826, and this was powerfully shaped by the ongoing Greek War of Independence and the potency of French Philhellenism. The Venetians of Maometto Secondo were now made into Greeks, at war with the Ottomans, and the opera was thus made relevant to contemporary Greece. Public response to Rossinian orchestration suggested that what was once considered “Janissary” percussion was now being generally absorbed into the percussion section of the modern orchestra. In 1824 Beethoven allowed for the brief nostalgic appearance of a Janissary band playing a Turkish march in the score of the Ninth Symphony.Less
This chapter considers the flourishing of operas on Turkish themes in Restoration France, including Rossini’s Turkish operas in Paris—especially as Rossini became director of the Théâtre-Italien in the 1820s. His most important contribution to Turkishness in Paris was his refashioning of Maometto Secondo as Le Siège de Corinthe for the Paris Opéra in 1826, and this was powerfully shaped by the ongoing Greek War of Independence and the potency of French Philhellenism. The Venetians of Maometto Secondo were now made into Greeks, at war with the Ottomans, and the opera was thus made relevant to contemporary Greece. Public response to Rossinian orchestration suggested that what was once considered “Janissary” percussion was now being generally absorbed into the percussion section of the modern orchestra. In 1824 Beethoven allowed for the brief nostalgic appearance of a Janissary band playing a Turkish march in the score of the Ninth Symphony.
Jason Geary
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199736119
- eISBN:
- 9780199345007
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199736119.003.0006
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Opera
Here the geographical focus shifts to Munich and a discussion of the Bavarian court as a new center for the German revival of Greek tragedy. Like his Prussian counterpart, King Maximilian II of ...
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Here the geographical focus shifts to Munich and a discussion of the Bavarian court as a new center for the German revival of Greek tragedy. Like his Prussian counterpart, King Maximilian II of Bavaria turned to the performance of Greek tragedy as part of a larger attempt at cultural reform, including a continuation of the effort begun by his father to transform Munich into an “Athens on the Isar.” The theater reform in Munich initially took place in the shadow of Berlin but ultimately included an original production of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (1852) with music by the court composer Franz Lachner. Lachner also used Mendelssohn’s Greek music as a model, but employed a style marked by a distinctly sacred veneer in what appears to be an effort at suggesting both the religious tone of Sophocles’ drama and the elevated nature of Greek tragedy more generally.Less
Here the geographical focus shifts to Munich and a discussion of the Bavarian court as a new center for the German revival of Greek tragedy. Like his Prussian counterpart, King Maximilian II of Bavaria turned to the performance of Greek tragedy as part of a larger attempt at cultural reform, including a continuation of the effort begun by his father to transform Munich into an “Athens on the Isar.” The theater reform in Munich initially took place in the shadow of Berlin but ultimately included an original production of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King (1852) with music by the court composer Franz Lachner. Lachner also used Mendelssohn’s Greek music as a model, but employed a style marked by a distinctly sacred veneer in what appears to be an effort at suggesting both the religious tone of Sophocles’ drama and the elevated nature of Greek tragedy more generally.
Erika Fischer-Lichte
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- June 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199651634
- eISBN:
- 9780191801440
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199651634.003.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The Prologue proceeds from the common understanding that Philhellenism was constitutive of the cultural identity of the German Bildungsbürgertum since the end of the 18th century until the 1970s or ...
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The Prologue proceeds from the common understanding that Philhellenism was constitutive of the cultural identity of the German Bildungsbürgertum since the end of the 18th century until the 1970s or even the 1980s – i.e. between the times of the French Revolution (1789) and the reunification of the two German states in 1989. This common understanding usually is connected to German poets and writers from Winckelmann to Stefan George (Eliza Butler) or explained with regard to the development of Altertumswissenschaften (Martin Bernal and Suzanne Marchand), albeit with different emphases. The link between Philhellenism and theatromania, epitomized in performances of Greek tragedies since 1800 has so far remained absent from this discussion. Therefore, in this study, the focus will shift to the relationship between performances of Greek tragedies and the cultural identity of the German Bildungsbürgertum. It thus attempts to understand tragedy’s endurance on German stages during the last 200 years.Less
The Prologue proceeds from the common understanding that Philhellenism was constitutive of the cultural identity of the German Bildungsbürgertum since the end of the 18th century until the 1970s or even the 1980s – i.e. between the times of the French Revolution (1789) and the reunification of the two German states in 1989. This common understanding usually is connected to German poets and writers from Winckelmann to Stefan George (Eliza Butler) or explained with regard to the development of Altertumswissenschaften (Martin Bernal and Suzanne Marchand), albeit with different emphases. The link between Philhellenism and theatromania, epitomized in performances of Greek tragedies since 1800 has so far remained absent from this discussion. Therefore, in this study, the focus will shift to the relationship between performances of Greek tragedies and the cultural identity of the German Bildungsbürgertum. It thus attempts to understand tragedy’s endurance on German stages during the last 200 years.
Erika Fischer-Lichte
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- June 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199651634
- eISBN:
- 9780191801440
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199651634.003.0002
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The introduction ‘Philhellenism and Theatromania’ retraces the emergence of these two phenomena in the German middle class. The year 1755 marks a watershed in this regard: it saw the publication of ...
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The introduction ‘Philhellenism and Theatromania’ retraces the emergence of these two phenomena in the German middle class. The year 1755 marks a watershed in this regard: it saw the publication of J. J. Winckelmann’s treatise Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks and the premiere of G. E. Lessing’s first domestic tragedy Miß Sara Sampson. Both share the common root and motivation once and for all to banish Frenchified German court culture. While Winckelmann’s treatise praised the ‘noble simplicity’ and ‘quiet greatness’ of the Greek masterpieces, Lessing’s play advocated new family values and the ideal of ‘naturalness’ as the true virtues of the middle class. The merging of Philhellenism as the cult of beauty with theatromania as the quest for identifying in a social group and as an individual provided the basic condition for staging Greek tragedies.Less
The introduction ‘Philhellenism and Theatromania’ retraces the emergence of these two phenomena in the German middle class. The year 1755 marks a watershed in this regard: it saw the publication of J. J. Winckelmann’s treatise Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks and the premiere of G. E. Lessing’s first domestic tragedy Miß Sara Sampson. Both share the common root and motivation once and for all to banish Frenchified German court culture. While Winckelmann’s treatise praised the ‘noble simplicity’ and ‘quiet greatness’ of the Greek masterpieces, Lessing’s play advocated new family values and the ideal of ‘naturalness’ as the true virtues of the middle class. The merging of Philhellenism as the cult of beauty with theatromania as the quest for identifying in a social group and as an individual provided the basic condition for staging Greek tragedies.
Stefanos Katsikas
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- October 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780190652005
- eISBN:
- 9780190652036
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190652005.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter analyzes the emergence and rise of Greek nationalism and its effects on the Muslim populations in the areas affected by the Greek War of Independence. The chapter also explores the close ...
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This chapter analyzes the emergence and rise of Greek nationalism and its effects on the Muslim populations in the areas affected by the Greek War of Independence. The chapter also explores the close interconnection of Greek national identity with Orthodox Christianity, how legal and other documents of the time define Greek nationality and citizenship in the rebellious areas, and the extent to which Muslims and other non-Christians were seen to fit that definition. The chapter also examines the reasons that led several Muslims in the rebellious areas to support the war.Less
This chapter analyzes the emergence and rise of Greek nationalism and its effects on the Muslim populations in the areas affected by the Greek War of Independence. The chapter also explores the close interconnection of Greek national identity with Orthodox Christianity, how legal and other documents of the time define Greek nationality and citizenship in the rebellious areas, and the extent to which Muslims and other non-Christians were seen to fit that definition. The chapter also examines the reasons that led several Muslims in the rebellious areas to support the war.