Martha Feldman
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780520279490
- eISBN:
- 9780520962033
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520279490.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
Explanations for castration have long puzzled scholars of castrato singers. chapter 1 takes narratives of castration to be cultural gestures that move their protagonists from budding hubris to ...
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Explanations for castration have long puzzled scholars of castrato singers. chapter 1 takes narratives of castration to be cultural gestures that move their protagonists from budding hubris to alleged servitude, from the perils to maleness to hubristically comical claims of male-to-male generation. The patterns manifest in surprising, expiatory jokes and tropes about castration that extend to bizarre affinities with the endlessly generative, carnivalesque figure of Pulcinella, and at the same time, these narratives freely refigure Christ’s passion in imitations that retrospectively forestall the ills of castration through boastful claims of courage.Less
Explanations for castration have long puzzled scholars of castrato singers. chapter 1 takes narratives of castration to be cultural gestures that move their protagonists from budding hubris to alleged servitude, from the perils to maleness to hubristically comical claims of male-to-male generation. The patterns manifest in surprising, expiatory jokes and tropes about castration that extend to bizarre affinities with the endlessly generative, carnivalesque figure of Pulcinella, and at the same time, these narratives freely refigure Christ’s passion in imitations that retrospectively forestall the ills of castration through boastful claims of courage.
