Louis A. Girifalco
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199228966
- eISBN:
- 9780191711183
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199228966.003.0014
- Subject:
- Physics, History of Physics
Events take place in space and time. A fundamental fact is that between any two points, another point can be found and between any two moments, there is always anther moment. There are no gaps in ...
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Events take place in space and time. A fundamental fact is that between any two points, another point can be found and between any two moments, there is always anther moment. There are no gaps in space or time, and each is therefore said to form a continuum. Einstein showed that time and space are inextricably mixed. Each event requires three space dimensions and a time for its description, so time and space taken together are said to form the space-time continuum. It has four ‘dimensions’: three for space and one for time. The formulation of relativity is greatly simplified by Minkowski's mathematical treatment of physical events as happening in the four dimensional space-time continuum. This is the origin of calling time the ‘fourth dimension’.Less
Events take place in space and time. A fundamental fact is that between any two points, another point can be found and between any two moments, there is always anther moment. There are no gaps in space or time, and each is therefore said to form a continuum. Einstein showed that time and space are inextricably mixed. Each event requires three space dimensions and a time for its description, so time and space taken together are said to form the space-time continuum. It has four ‘dimensions’: three for space and one for time. The formulation of relativity is greatly simplified by Minkowski's mathematical treatment of physical events as happening in the four dimensional space-time continuum. This is the origin of calling time the ‘fourth dimension’.
Nicole A. Waligora-Davis
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- May 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195369915
- eISBN:
- 9780199893379
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195369915.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
W. E. B. Du Bois’s blueprint for an alternative global democracy—“the fourth dimension”—finds its fullest articulation in the aftermath of two world wars. In Darkwater and Dark Princess, Du Bois ...
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W. E. B. Du Bois’s blueprint for an alternative global democracy—“the fourth dimension”—finds its fullest articulation in the aftermath of two world wars. In Darkwater and Dark Princess, Du Bois outline for socioeconomic and governance reform squarely locates the politically marginalized and colonized “colored world” at the center of a new global democracy. A proponent of republicanism, Du Bois rejects a “tyranny of the Majority,” and celebrates meaningful political participation by every member of society irrespective of race or gender. Du Bois’s critically cosmopolitan vision acknowledges the interrelation between intranational race conflicts and colonial and imperial projects practiced throughout the world. Addressing the primacy of race within domestic and international debates over national security, employment, resources, poverty, and health, Du Bois cites global democracy as a predicate for sustainable peace. Both governance strategy and critique, Du Bois’s “fourth dimension” revises the concept of citizenship and civil obligation, focuses on hinges on educational reform and the wellbeing of (black) American children. Prefiguring the arguments of mid and late 20th-century political philosophers, Du Bois insists that the disenfranchisement of one community within a society (specifically black Americans in the U.S.) risks the well being of the entire polis.Less
W. E. B. Du Bois’s blueprint for an alternative global democracy—“the fourth dimension”—finds its fullest articulation in the aftermath of two world wars. In Darkwater and Dark Princess, Du Bois outline for socioeconomic and governance reform squarely locates the politically marginalized and colonized “colored world” at the center of a new global democracy. A proponent of republicanism, Du Bois rejects a “tyranny of the Majority,” and celebrates meaningful political participation by every member of society irrespective of race or gender. Du Bois’s critically cosmopolitan vision acknowledges the interrelation between intranational race conflicts and colonial and imperial projects practiced throughout the world. Addressing the primacy of race within domestic and international debates over national security, employment, resources, poverty, and health, Du Bois cites global democracy as a predicate for sustainable peace. Both governance strategy and critique, Du Bois’s “fourth dimension” revises the concept of citizenship and civil obligation, focuses on hinges on educational reform and the wellbeing of (black) American children. Prefiguring the arguments of mid and late 20th-century political philosophers, Du Bois insists that the disenfranchisement of one community within a society (specifically black Americans in the U.S.) risks the well being of the entire polis.
Tony Robbin
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300110395
- eISBN:
- 9780300129625
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300110395.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
This book investigates different models of the fourth dimension and how these are applied in art and physics. It explores the distinction between the slicing, or Flatland, model and the projection, ...
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This book investigates different models of the fourth dimension and how these are applied in art and physics. It explores the distinction between the slicing, or Flatland, model and the projection, or shadow, model. The book compares the history of these two models and their uses and misuses in popular discussions. The book argues that Picasso used the projection model to invent cubism, and that Minkowski had four-dimensional projective geometry in mind when he structured special relativity. The discussion is brought to the present with an exposition of the projection model in the most creative ideas about space in contemporary mathematics such as twisters, quasicrystals, and quantum topology. The book proposes that the powerful role of projective geometry in the development of current mathematical ideas has been long overlooked and that our attachment to the slicing model is essentially a conceptual block that hinders progress in understanding contemporary models of spacetime.Less
This book investigates different models of the fourth dimension and how these are applied in art and physics. It explores the distinction between the slicing, or Flatland, model and the projection, or shadow, model. The book compares the history of these two models and their uses and misuses in popular discussions. The book argues that Picasso used the projection model to invent cubism, and that Minkowski had four-dimensional projective geometry in mind when he structured special relativity. The discussion is brought to the present with an exposition of the projection model in the most creative ideas about space in contemporary mathematics such as twisters, quasicrystals, and quantum topology. The book proposes that the powerful role of projective geometry in the development of current mathematical ideas has been long overlooked and that our attachment to the slicing model is essentially a conceptual block that hinders progress in understanding contemporary models of spacetime.
Roy Sorensen
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199275731
- eISBN:
- 9780191706103
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199275731.003.0013
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind
A meta-conception is a hypothetical one. It answers a question by imagining someone (usually a more able conceiver) answering that question via an act of imagination. Thus, meta-conceptions stand to ...
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A meta-conception is a hypothetical one. It answers a question by imagining someone (usually a more able conceiver) answering that question via an act of imagination. Thus, meta-conceptions stand to thought experiments as thought experiments stand to executed experiments. If conceivability entails possibility, then meta-conceiving entails possibility. Meta-conceptions would then work as well as thought experiments. But they do not work as well, giving fresh doubt about ‘Conceivability entails possibility’. Some of what passes for conceiving is really meta-conceiving, so these concerns affect modal epistemology. This chapter considers meta-conceptions as legitimate modes of inquiry but ranks them lower than thought experiments.Less
A meta-conception is a hypothetical one. It answers a question by imagining someone (usually a more able conceiver) answering that question via an act of imagination. Thus, meta-conceptions stand to thought experiments as thought experiments stand to executed experiments. If conceivability entails possibility, then meta-conceiving entails possibility. Meta-conceptions would then work as well as thought experiments. But they do not work as well, giving fresh doubt about ‘Conceivability entails possibility’. Some of what passes for conceiving is really meta-conceiving, so these concerns affect modal epistemology. This chapter considers meta-conceptions as legitimate modes of inquiry but ranks them lower than thought experiments.
Makiko Minow-Pinkney
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780983533955
- eISBN:
- 9781781384930
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9780983533955.003.0024
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter explores the question of a “fourth dimension” in Virginia Woolf's fiction. In 1924, Woolf asked in her diary as she revised the manuscript of Mrs Dalloway (1925): “But is it unreal?” At ...
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This chapter explores the question of a “fourth dimension” in Virginia Woolf's fiction. In 1924, Woolf asked in her diary as she revised the manuscript of Mrs Dalloway (1925): “But is it unreal?” At issue here is the contradiction between “reality” and modernist fiction brought to the fore a year and half earlier in Arnold Bennett's critique of the characters of Jacob's Room (1922). His criticism had already prompted Woolf's essay “Character in Fiction,” in which she asserts, “on or about December 1910 human character changed.” The chapter discusses the connections between Cubism and pre-Einsteinian fourth-dimensional theory, along with Woolf's own depictions of mathematicians in her novels. It also considers Henry Parker Manning's compendium, The Fourth Dimension Simply Explained: A Collection of Essays Selected from Those Submitted in the Scientific American's Prize Competition (1910), and the extent to which it influenced Woolf's mischievous theory of character and cultural transition in December 1910.Less
This chapter explores the question of a “fourth dimension” in Virginia Woolf's fiction. In 1924, Woolf asked in her diary as she revised the manuscript of Mrs Dalloway (1925): “But is it unreal?” At issue here is the contradiction between “reality” and modernist fiction brought to the fore a year and half earlier in Arnold Bennett's critique of the characters of Jacob's Room (1922). His criticism had already prompted Woolf's essay “Character in Fiction,” in which she asserts, “on or about December 1910 human character changed.” The chapter discusses the connections between Cubism and pre-Einsteinian fourth-dimensional theory, along with Woolf's own depictions of mathematicians in her novels. It also considers Henry Parker Manning's compendium, The Fourth Dimension Simply Explained: A Collection of Essays Selected from Those Submitted in the Scientific American's Prize Competition (1910), and the extent to which it influenced Woolf's mischievous theory of character and cultural transition in December 1910.
Jed Rasula
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199396290
- eISBN:
- 9780199396320
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199396290.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This chapter begins by following Dudley Murphy’s development from ardent Arcadian in his 1920 film Soul of the Cypress to the unabashedly modernist Ballet mécanique in 1924. This film participated in ...
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This chapter begins by following Dudley Murphy’s development from ardent Arcadian in his 1920 film Soul of the Cypress to the unabashedly modernist Ballet mécanique in 1924. This film participated in the machine aesthetic of the twenties and through composer George Antheil’s score led to a widespread avidity for fourth-dimension theorizing across the arts. While its basis in mysticism is well documented, the fourth dimension is here understood as another of those anticipatory shivers as artists aspired to achieve an unparalleled intensity in their art, ranging from collage to cinematic montage. The fourth dimension was a psychotropic nomenclature manifesting what German romantic theory identified as the “sublime impudence” of modern art as such.Less
This chapter begins by following Dudley Murphy’s development from ardent Arcadian in his 1920 film Soul of the Cypress to the unabashedly modernist Ballet mécanique in 1924. This film participated in the machine aesthetic of the twenties and through composer George Antheil’s score led to a widespread avidity for fourth-dimension theorizing across the arts. While its basis in mysticism is well documented, the fourth dimension is here understood as another of those anticipatory shivers as artists aspired to achieve an unparalleled intensity in their art, ranging from collage to cinematic montage. The fourth dimension was a psychotropic nomenclature manifesting what German romantic theory identified as the “sublime impudence” of modern art as such.
Mark Blacklock
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198755487
- eISBN:
- 9780191816680
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198755487.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
Chapter 4 focuses on the work of Charles Howard Hinton, author of the first Scientific Romances and the least well-known yet most influential theorist of higher space of the late nineteenth century. ...
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Chapter 4 focuses on the work of Charles Howard Hinton, author of the first Scientific Romances and the least well-known yet most influential theorist of higher space of the late nineteenth century. ‘Hinton was an important mediating figure,’ writes Steven Connor, ‘because, like some of the physical scientists who investigated Spiritualism, his grasp of scientific principles was extensive and subtle.’ Indeed, his work fed into the literature of occult groupings, avant-garde art, Modernist poetry and fiction, and also back into geometry and orthodox science. ‘Cubes’ give a detailed account of Hinton’s work, highlighting his acknowledged and implied sources, Kepler, Kant, and his father, before focusing on his invention of a system of cubes for training the subject in the visualization of higher space. This set of cubes are read as ‘quasi-objects’, things that make fluid the distinction between thinking thing and thing thought on, between mind and material object.Less
Chapter 4 focuses on the work of Charles Howard Hinton, author of the first Scientific Romances and the least well-known yet most influential theorist of higher space of the late nineteenth century. ‘Hinton was an important mediating figure,’ writes Steven Connor, ‘because, like some of the physical scientists who investigated Spiritualism, his grasp of scientific principles was extensive and subtle.’ Indeed, his work fed into the literature of occult groupings, avant-garde art, Modernist poetry and fiction, and also back into geometry and orthodox science. ‘Cubes’ give a detailed account of Hinton’s work, highlighting his acknowledged and implied sources, Kepler, Kant, and his father, before focusing on his invention of a system of cubes for training the subject in the visualization of higher space. This set of cubes are read as ‘quasi-objects’, things that make fluid the distinction between thinking thing and thing thought on, between mind and material object.
Mark Blacklock
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198755487
- eISBN:
- 9780191816680
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198755487.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
The idea of the fourth dimension of space has been of sustained interest to nineteenth-century and Modernist studies since the publication of Linda Dalrymple Henderson’s The Fourth Dimension and ...
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The idea of the fourth dimension of space has been of sustained interest to nineteenth-century and Modernist studies since the publication of Linda Dalrymple Henderson’s The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art (1983). An idea from mathematics that was appropriated by occultist thought, it emerged in the fin de siècle as a staple of genre fiction and grew to become an informing idea for a number of important Modernist writers and artists. Describing the post-Euclidean intellectual landscape of the late nineteenth century, The Emergence of the Fourth Dimension works with the concepts derived from the mathematical possibilities of n-dimensional geometry—co-presence, bi-location, and interpenetration; the experiences of two consciousnesses sharing the same space, one consciousness being in two spaces, and objects and consciousness pervading each other—to examine how a crucially transformative idea in the cultural history of space was thought and to consider the forms in which such thought was anchored. It identifies a corpus of higher-dimensional fictions by Conrad and Ford, H.G. Wells, Henry James, H.P. Lovecraft, and others and reads these closely to understand how fin de siècle and early twentieth-century literature shaped and were in turn shaped by the reconfiguration of imaginative space occasioned by the n-dimensional turn. In so doing it traces the intellectual history of higher-dimensional thought into diverse terrains, describing spiritualist experiments and how an extended abstract space functioned as an analogue for global space in occult groupings such as the Theosophical Society.Less
The idea of the fourth dimension of space has been of sustained interest to nineteenth-century and Modernist studies since the publication of Linda Dalrymple Henderson’s The Fourth Dimension and Non-Euclidean Geometry in Modern Art (1983). An idea from mathematics that was appropriated by occultist thought, it emerged in the fin de siècle as a staple of genre fiction and grew to become an informing idea for a number of important Modernist writers and artists. Describing the post-Euclidean intellectual landscape of the late nineteenth century, The Emergence of the Fourth Dimension works with the concepts derived from the mathematical possibilities of n-dimensional geometry—co-presence, bi-location, and interpenetration; the experiences of two consciousnesses sharing the same space, one consciousness being in two spaces, and objects and consciousness pervading each other—to examine how a crucially transformative idea in the cultural history of space was thought and to consider the forms in which such thought was anchored. It identifies a corpus of higher-dimensional fictions by Conrad and Ford, H.G. Wells, Henry James, H.P. Lovecraft, and others and reads these closely to understand how fin de siècle and early twentieth-century literature shaped and were in turn shaped by the reconfiguration of imaginative space occasioned by the n-dimensional turn. In so doing it traces the intellectual history of higher-dimensional thought into diverse terrains, describing spiritualist experiments and how an extended abstract space functioned as an analogue for global space in occult groupings such as the Theosophical Society.
Brian Baker
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- July 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780719069048
- eISBN:
- 9781781700891
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719069048.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century and Contemporary Literature
This chapter examines the ‘British poetry revival’ that Sinclair was engaged in when he wrote and published Lud Heat and Suicide Bridge. It considers the importance of William Blake to Suicide ...
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This chapter examines the ‘British poetry revival’ that Sinclair was engaged in when he wrote and published Lud Heat and Suicide Bridge. It considers the importance of William Blake to Suicide Bridge, and examines the factors that were used to define the poetic practice of the British poetry revival poets. It then shows how Sinclair adopted Michael Faraday's conception of the field for the purposes of cultural and social critique, and how Sinclair included the fourth dimension—namely time—in the Suicide Bridge. Finally, it shows how Nicholas Hawksmoor helped Sinclair reimagine London and its myths, and discusses Sinclair's troubling and conflicted understanding of the workings of myth and the scientific metaphors he used in his works.Less
This chapter examines the ‘British poetry revival’ that Sinclair was engaged in when he wrote and published Lud Heat and Suicide Bridge. It considers the importance of William Blake to Suicide Bridge, and examines the factors that were used to define the poetic practice of the British poetry revival poets. It then shows how Sinclair adopted Michael Faraday's conception of the field for the purposes of cultural and social critique, and how Sinclair included the fourth dimension—namely time—in the Suicide Bridge. Finally, it shows how Nicholas Hawksmoor helped Sinclair reimagine London and its myths, and discusses Sinclair's troubling and conflicted understanding of the workings of myth and the scientific metaphors he used in his works.
Tony Robbin
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300110395
- eISBN:
- 9780300129625
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300110395.003.0010
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
This chapter looks at how the computer revolution developed by discussing some of the stories of the individuals who played major roles. These include Michael Noll, Heinz Von Foerster, Thomas ...
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This chapter looks at how the computer revolution developed by discussing some of the stories of the individuals who played major roles. These include Michael Noll, Heinz Von Foerster, Thomas Banchoff, and Koji Miyazaki. It notes that four-dimensional objects were one of the first to be drawn on computers, and that the arrival of this technology significantly improved technical illustrations of the fourth dimension.Less
This chapter looks at how the computer revolution developed by discussing some of the stories of the individuals who played major roles. These include Michael Noll, Heinz Von Foerster, Thomas Banchoff, and Koji Miyazaki. It notes that four-dimensional objects were one of the first to be drawn on computers, and that the arrival of this technology significantly improved technical illustrations of the fourth dimension.
PETER SIMONS
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199241460
- eISBN:
- 9780191696930
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199241460.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Metaphysics/Epistemology, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
Extensional mereologies are mostly very similar to Boolean algebras or complete Boolean algebras in their algebraic structure, and this similarity is not accidental. It can be accounted for by ...
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Extensional mereologies are mostly very similar to Boolean algebras or complete Boolean algebras in their algebraic structure, and this similarity is not accidental. It can be accounted for by considering the jobs which they were and are called upon to perform. In most applications of mereology, the natural rival is some kind of set theory, and mereology is usually preferred, when it is preferred, for philosophical rather than mathematical reasons. This can be seen by examining both the development of the main systems of extensional mereology and more recent applications. The resulting systems have tended to be strong, to hold their own more readily against their inherently more powerful set-theoretic rival. This heritage has had detrimental effects on mereology, which are considered in some detail in the present chapter. The genesis of extensional mereology is first outlined to help explain why the main systems are as they are.Less
Extensional mereologies are mostly very similar to Boolean algebras or complete Boolean algebras in their algebraic structure, and this similarity is not accidental. It can be accounted for by considering the jobs which they were and are called upon to perform. In most applications of mereology, the natural rival is some kind of set theory, and mereology is usually preferred, when it is preferred, for philosophical rather than mathematical reasons. This can be seen by examining both the development of the main systems of extensional mereology and more recent applications. The resulting systems have tended to be strong, to hold their own more readily against their inherently more powerful set-theoretic rival. This heritage has had detrimental effects on mereology, which are considered in some detail in the present chapter. The genesis of extensional mereology is first outlined to help explain why the main systems are as they are.
Marinos Pourgouris
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199672752
- eISBN:
- 9780191774324
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199672752.003.0016
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
This chapter revisits Marx’s reception of classical Greek literature, as well as the interrelated concept of dialectical materialism, in order to examine Yannis Ritsos’ reworking of the Greek ...
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This chapter revisits Marx’s reception of classical Greek literature, as well as the interrelated concept of dialectical materialism, in order to examine Yannis Ritsos’ reworking of the Greek mythological subtext in the collection The Fourth Dimension. It discusses the problematical position of classical Greek literature in Marx’s schema of dialectical materialism, which assumes a kind of progressive evolution of literature alongside socioeconomic and political transformations. Following Herbert Marcuse’s call for a more substantial examination of classical Greek literature—and myth in particular—in the context of Marxist literary theory, the chapter examines The Fourth Dimension against the background of dialectical materialism, arguing that Ritsos’ re-imagining of a decaying mythological world represents a description of history’s progression in terms of a constant and—most significantly—unresolved opposition between the old and the new.Less
This chapter revisits Marx’s reception of classical Greek literature, as well as the interrelated concept of dialectical materialism, in order to examine Yannis Ritsos’ reworking of the Greek mythological subtext in the collection The Fourth Dimension. It discusses the problematical position of classical Greek literature in Marx’s schema of dialectical materialism, which assumes a kind of progressive evolution of literature alongside socioeconomic and political transformations. Following Herbert Marcuse’s call for a more substantial examination of classical Greek literature—and myth in particular—in the context of Marxist literary theory, the chapter examines The Fourth Dimension against the background of dialectical materialism, arguing that Ritsos’ re-imagining of a decaying mythological world represents a description of history’s progression in terms of a constant and—most significantly—unresolved opposition between the old and the new.
Jed Rasula
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780199396290
- eISBN:
- 9780199396320
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199396290.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
This book addresses modernism as an expanding historical force generated by the nineteenth-century fascination with music, as all the arts sought renewal by a kind of aesthetic miscegenation. Richard ...
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This book addresses modernism as an expanding historical force generated by the nineteenth-century fascination with music, as all the arts sought renewal by a kind of aesthetic miscegenation. Richard Wagner’s concepts of the Gesamtkunstwerk and “endless melody” were of paramount historical consequence in elevating music to a universal aesthetic standard, spawning Wagnerism as first among modern isms. Modernism promoted interaction among the arts, with each art aspiring to produce the effects of another artistic medium. In pursuit of this expansive initiative, modernism tacitly adhered to a key precept of German romanticism, namely, that modern art must be the work and the theory of the work at once. Artworks were infused with a premonitory shiver, a synesthetic yearning, as if each painting, literary text, or musical composition might herald an unprecedented domain of human enterprise—auguring some cultural equivalent of the fourth dimension. In order to survey this momentous interplay among arts, this book ranges from literature, music, and painting to theatre, cinema, dance, photography, and civic pageantry.Less
This book addresses modernism as an expanding historical force generated by the nineteenth-century fascination with music, as all the arts sought renewal by a kind of aesthetic miscegenation. Richard Wagner’s concepts of the Gesamtkunstwerk and “endless melody” were of paramount historical consequence in elevating music to a universal aesthetic standard, spawning Wagnerism as first among modern isms. Modernism promoted interaction among the arts, with each art aspiring to produce the effects of another artistic medium. In pursuit of this expansive initiative, modernism tacitly adhered to a key precept of German romanticism, namely, that modern art must be the work and the theory of the work at once. Artworks were infused with a premonitory shiver, a synesthetic yearning, as if each painting, literary text, or musical composition might herald an unprecedented domain of human enterprise—auguring some cultural equivalent of the fourth dimension. In order to survey this momentous interplay among arts, this book ranges from literature, music, and painting to theatre, cinema, dance, photography, and civic pageantry.
Dimitris Tziovas
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199672752
- eISBN:
- 9780191774324
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199672752.003.0017
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, European History: BCE to 500CE
The aim of this chapter is to reassess ‘Philoctetes’ (1963–5), one of the most important dramatic monologues in the Greek poet Yannis Ritsos’ collection The Fourth Dimension (1972), in the context of ...
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The aim of this chapter is to reassess ‘Philoctetes’ (1963–5), one of the most important dramatic monologues in the Greek poet Yannis Ritsos’ collection The Fourth Dimension (1972), in the context of the western reception of Sophocles’ hero. Though it is difficult to categorize the richness and diversity of responses to Sophocles’ play, it could be argued that its reception centred around three major themes: pain, exile, and politics. The analysis of Ritsos’ poem offered here aspires to demonstrate how ‘minor’ literatures can enrich the worldwide reception of classical myths, and to assess whether the text is consistent with the three themes mentioned above or diverges from them in a significant way. It is indeed hard to align Ritsos’ ‘Philoctetes’ with one of the three major themes which dominate the modern versions of Sophocles’ hero. Hence, this chapter explores the poem’s complexities in the light of the other modern reworkings of the myth of Philoctetes and in the context of political developments in Greece during the 1960s. This dramatic monologue presents one of the best opportunities to reassess the extent to which Ritsos can be considered a politically committed poet.Less
The aim of this chapter is to reassess ‘Philoctetes’ (1963–5), one of the most important dramatic monologues in the Greek poet Yannis Ritsos’ collection The Fourth Dimension (1972), in the context of the western reception of Sophocles’ hero. Though it is difficult to categorize the richness and diversity of responses to Sophocles’ play, it could be argued that its reception centred around three major themes: pain, exile, and politics. The analysis of Ritsos’ poem offered here aspires to demonstrate how ‘minor’ literatures can enrich the worldwide reception of classical myths, and to assess whether the text is consistent with the three themes mentioned above or diverges from them in a significant way. It is indeed hard to align Ritsos’ ‘Philoctetes’ with one of the three major themes which dominate the modern versions of Sophocles’ hero. Hence, this chapter explores the poem’s complexities in the light of the other modern reworkings of the myth of Philoctetes and in the context of political developments in Greece during the 1960s. This dramatic monologue presents one of the best opportunities to reassess the extent to which Ritsos can be considered a politically committed poet.
Nathalie Deruelle and Jean-Philippe Uzan
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- October 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198786399
- eISBN:
- 9780191828669
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198786399.003.0019
- Subject:
- Physics, Particle Physics / Astrophysics / Cosmology
This chapter presents the main features of the Minkowski spacetime, which is the geometrical framework in which the laws of relativistic dynamics are formulated. It is a very simple mathematical ...
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This chapter presents the main features of the Minkowski spacetime, which is the geometrical framework in which the laws of relativistic dynamics are formulated. It is a very simple mathematical extension of three-dimensional Euclidean space. In special relativity, ‘relative, apparent, and common’ (in the words of Newton) space and time are represented by a mathematical set of points called events, which constitute the Minkowski spacetime. This chapter also stresses the interpretation of the fourth dimension, which in special relativity is time. Here, time now loses the ‘universal’ and ‘absolute’ nature that it had in the Newtonian theory.Less
This chapter presents the main features of the Minkowski spacetime, which is the geometrical framework in which the laws of relativistic dynamics are formulated. It is a very simple mathematical extension of three-dimensional Euclidean space. In special relativity, ‘relative, apparent, and common’ (in the words of Newton) space and time are represented by a mathematical set of points called events, which constitute the Minkowski spacetime. This chapter also stresses the interpretation of the fourth dimension, which in special relativity is time. Here, time now loses the ‘universal’ and ‘absolute’ nature that it had in the Newtonian theory.
