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.
Bysshe Inigo Coffey
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- January 2022
- ISBN:
- 9781800855380
- eISBN:
- 9781800852938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781800855380.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
The introduction recounts the reception history of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the extremes of advocacy and detraction to which he was subjected, and the charges of weakness levelled against him by ...
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The introduction recounts the reception history of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the extremes of advocacy and detraction to which he was subjected, and the charges of weakness levelled against him by Victorian readers. It explores Shelley’s manuscript history, pointing, and the ways in which critics have tried to define his intellectual trajectory. It places special emphasis on the pauses of his verse. The introduction outlines that the book will make reference to Shelley’s reading, particularly the ‘Marlow List’, his poetic technique, and his unique approach to life and thought. It seeks to offer the beginning of a new reading of Shelley.Less
The introduction recounts the reception history of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the extremes of advocacy and detraction to which he was subjected, and the charges of weakness levelled against him by Victorian readers. It explores Shelley’s manuscript history, pointing, and the ways in which critics have tried to define his intellectual trajectory. It places special emphasis on the pauses of his verse. The introduction outlines that the book will make reference to Shelley’s reading, particularly the ‘Marlow List’, his poetic technique, and his unique approach to life and thought. It seeks to offer the beginning of a new reading of Shelley.
Bettina Varwig (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- November 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780190943899
- eISBN:
- 9780190943929
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190943899.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
If Johann Sebastian Bach has loomed extra-large in the imagination of scholars, performers, and audiences since the late nineteenth century, this volume sets out to provocatively reshape that ...
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If Johann Sebastian Bach has loomed extra-large in the imagination of scholars, performers, and audiences since the late nineteenth century, this volume sets out to provocatively reshape that imagination from a multitude of present-day perspectives, both from within and outside of traditional Bach studies. The essays gathered here reconsider Bach’s musical practices from the vantage points of material culture, voice, embodiment, affect theory, and systematic theology; they challenge fundamental assumptions about the nineteenth-century Bach revival, about the rise of the modern work concept, about Bach’s music as a code, and about editions of his music as monuments; and they reimagine Bach as humorist, as post/colonial export, as pedagogue, as anti-modernist, and as uneasy postmodern icon. Collectively, these contributions thus take apart, scrutinize, dust off, and reassemble some of our most cherished narratives and deeply held beliefs about Bach and his music. In doing so, they open up multiple pathways toward exciting future modes of engagement with the composer and his legacy.Less
If Johann Sebastian Bach has loomed extra-large in the imagination of scholars, performers, and audiences since the late nineteenth century, this volume sets out to provocatively reshape that imagination from a multitude of present-day perspectives, both from within and outside of traditional Bach studies. The essays gathered here reconsider Bach’s musical practices from the vantage points of material culture, voice, embodiment, affect theory, and systematic theology; they challenge fundamental assumptions about the nineteenth-century Bach revival, about the rise of the modern work concept, about Bach’s music as a code, and about editions of his music as monuments; and they reimagine Bach as humorist, as post/colonial export, as pedagogue, as anti-modernist, and as uneasy postmodern icon. Collectively, these contributions thus take apart, scrutinize, dust off, and reassemble some of our most cherished narratives and deeply held beliefs about Bach and his music. In doing so, they open up multiple pathways toward exciting future modes of engagement with the composer and his legacy.
