Robert L. Kendrick
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780520297579
- eISBN:
- 9780520969872
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520297579.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Opera
This study of some sixty-odd Italian-language music-theater pieces for Holy Week in seventeenth-century Vienna addresses the issues of Habsburg dynastic piety, memory and commemoration, Passion ...
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This study of some sixty-odd Italian-language music-theater pieces for Holy Week in seventeenth-century Vienna addresses the issues of Habsburg dynastic piety, memory and commemoration, Passion devotion, and political meaning in the works. It further considers some surprising conjunctions of poetic conceptualism in connection with surprising—and theatrical—musical techniques. The pieces were meant to be performed in front of a constructed replica of Christ’s tomb—hence their Italian sobriquet, sepolcri—and often with an additional stage-set. Flourishing during the reign of Emperor Leopold I (1657–1705), the genre was also indebted to the patronage and piety of the women around him, including his stepmother, the Dowager Empress Eleonora, his three wives, and several of his daughters. The libretti, many by the famed Nicolo Minato, show unusual textual strategies in the recollection of Christ’s Passion, as they are imagined to take place after his burial. But they also involve wider realms of the dynastic’s self-image, material possessions, and political ideology. Although both the texts and the music—the latter by a variety of composers, most notably Giovanni Felice Sances and Antonio Draghi, along with Leopold himself—are little studied today, they also combined in performance to provide a sonic enactment of mourning according to the most recent norms of Italian musical dramaturgy.Less
This study of some sixty-odd Italian-language music-theater pieces for Holy Week in seventeenth-century Vienna addresses the issues of Habsburg dynastic piety, memory and commemoration, Passion devotion, and political meaning in the works. It further considers some surprising conjunctions of poetic conceptualism in connection with surprising—and theatrical—musical techniques. The pieces were meant to be performed in front of a constructed replica of Christ’s tomb—hence their Italian sobriquet, sepolcri—and often with an additional stage-set. Flourishing during the reign of Emperor Leopold I (1657–1705), the genre was also indebted to the patronage and piety of the women around him, including his stepmother, the Dowager Empress Eleonora, his three wives, and several of his daughters. The libretti, many by the famed Nicolo Minato, show unusual textual strategies in the recollection of Christ’s Passion, as they are imagined to take place after his burial. But they also involve wider realms of the dynastic’s self-image, material possessions, and political ideology. Although both the texts and the music—the latter by a variety of composers, most notably Giovanni Felice Sances and Antonio Draghi, along with Leopold himself—are little studied today, they also combined in performance to provide a sonic enactment of mourning according to the most recent norms of Italian musical dramaturgy.
Ralf Dietrich
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195336641
- eISBN:
- 9780199868551
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195336641.003.0009
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western, Popular
ONCE had two lives, each of which can be associated with one half of the 1960s. Chronologically, the ONCE Festival of musical premieres in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the nationwide performing ONCE ...
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ONCE had two lives, each of which can be associated with one half of the 1960s. Chronologically, the ONCE Festival of musical premieres in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the nationwide performing ONCE Group overlapped, but they differed in terms of funding, repertory and audiences. Aesthetic and political frames of reference, changing over the course of the decade from post‐war conservatism to baby boomer defiance, informed ONCE's use of electronics and theatricality and widened the scope of ONCE performances. Focusing on pieces by Robert Ashley (Public Opinion Descends Upon the Demonstrators; The Wolfman Motor‐City Revue) and Gordon Mumma (Megaton for William Burroughs), this chapter outlines correlations between the societal changes of the time and ONCE's status as an avant‐garde music venture.Less
ONCE had two lives, each of which can be associated with one half of the 1960s. Chronologically, the ONCE Festival of musical premieres in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the nationwide performing ONCE Group overlapped, but they differed in terms of funding, repertory and audiences. Aesthetic and political frames of reference, changing over the course of the decade from post‐war conservatism to baby boomer defiance, informed ONCE's use of electronics and theatricality and widened the scope of ONCE performances. Focusing on pieces by Robert Ashley (Public Opinion Descends Upon the Demonstrators; The Wolfman Motor‐City Revue) and Gordon Mumma (Megaton for William Burroughs), this chapter outlines correlations between the societal changes of the time and ONCE's status as an avant‐garde music venture.
David Worrall
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199276752
- eISBN:
- 9780191707643
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276752.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
This book argues that Romantic period drama for the stage is a neglected field of study. Looking beyond the Royal Theatres of Covent Garden and Drury Lane, it traces the link between networks of ...
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This book argues that Romantic period drama for the stage is a neglected field of study. Looking beyond the Royal Theatres of Covent Garden and Drury Lane, it traces the link between networks of plebeian activism linked not only to theatricality, but also to specific ideologies around Freemasonry, radicalism, and attempts to avoid censorship. The role of the Lord Chamberlain and his Examiner of Plays is treated in detail. Drawing mainly on primary sources (including manuscripts) from the National Archives, Huntington Library, Folger and British Library, it documents the popular politicization of theatre, such as attempts to suppress the Royalty Theatre and the parallel growth in urban London private theatres working on the edge of legality. The connections to politics and working class subcultures are stressed throughout, not only by Queen Caroline’s consummate use of ‘illegitimate’ theatres such as the Royal Coburg (present day Old Vic) to forward her claims to the throne, but also contemporary drama’s reflection of issues such as provincial sex crime and the abolition of slavery. Moreover, this study of dramatic Romanticism emphasizes that Georgian theatricality permeated society through its private theatres (sometimes with paedophilic intent), ‘song-and-supper’ clubs, and constant confrontation with the oligarchic powers of the Royal Theatres and the Lord Chamberlain.Less
This book argues that Romantic period drama for the stage is a neglected field of study. Looking beyond the Royal Theatres of Covent Garden and Drury Lane, it traces the link between networks of plebeian activism linked not only to theatricality, but also to specific ideologies around Freemasonry, radicalism, and attempts to avoid censorship. The role of the Lord Chamberlain and his Examiner of Plays is treated in detail. Drawing mainly on primary sources (including manuscripts) from the National Archives, Huntington Library, Folger and British Library, it documents the popular politicization of theatre, such as attempts to suppress the Royalty Theatre and the parallel growth in urban London private theatres working on the edge of legality. The connections to politics and working class subcultures are stressed throughout, not only by Queen Caroline’s consummate use of ‘illegitimate’ theatres such as the Royal Coburg (present day Old Vic) to forward her claims to the throne, but also contemporary drama’s reflection of issues such as provincial sex crime and the abolition of slavery. Moreover, this study of dramatic Romanticism emphasizes that Georgian theatricality permeated society through its private theatres (sometimes with paedophilic intent), ‘song-and-supper’ clubs, and constant confrontation with the oligarchic powers of the Royal Theatres and the Lord Chamberlain.
David Worrall
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199276752
- eISBN:
- 9780191707643
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199276752.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
This chapter surveys how Georgian theatricality permeated every area of contemporary popular culture. Its methodology is to trace how popular dramatics percolated down through all levels of society. ...
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This chapter surveys how Georgian theatricality permeated every area of contemporary popular culture. Its methodology is to trace how popular dramatics percolated down through all levels of society. These include aristocratic private theatricals (which sometimes had a paedophilic content) and London’s urban private theatres, establishments bordering on illegality and frequented by lawyer’s scribes and apprentices who sometimes paid to act. The chapter stresses the sheer variety of contemporary venues and opportunities for acting or for following drama. It suggests that clear-cut distinctions between actors and audiences were being rapidly eroded. In tracing the plebeian following of drama, it reassesses Marc Baer’s (1992) study of the Covent Garden 1809 Old Price Riots by finding more discharged labourers than he allows and examining the audience implications of the dead at a Sadler’s Wells theatre stampede.Less
This chapter surveys how Georgian theatricality permeated every area of contemporary popular culture. Its methodology is to trace how popular dramatics percolated down through all levels of society. These include aristocratic private theatricals (which sometimes had a paedophilic content) and London’s urban private theatres, establishments bordering on illegality and frequented by lawyer’s scribes and apprentices who sometimes paid to act. The chapter stresses the sheer variety of contemporary venues and opportunities for acting or for following drama. It suggests that clear-cut distinctions between actors and audiences were being rapidly eroded. In tracing the plebeian following of drama, it reassesses Marc Baer’s (1992) study of the Covent Garden 1809 Old Price Riots by finding more discharged labourers than he allows and examining the audience implications of the dead at a Sadler’s Wells theatre stampede.
Neil Corcoran
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198186908
- eISBN:
- 9780191719011
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198186908.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism
This chapter offers a lengthy reading of Bowen's wartime novel, The Heat of the Day, considering it in tandem with various of its contexts, notably Bowen's wartime reports from neutral Ireland to ...
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This chapter offers a lengthy reading of Bowen's wartime novel, The Heat of the Day, considering it in tandem with various of its contexts, notably Bowen's wartime reports from neutral Ireland to Churchill's government — which some considered a form of espionage — and the diaries of her wartime love, Charles Ritchie, a high-ranking Canadian diplomat. These contexts establish a frame for interpreting the novel's notoriously slippery preoccupations with personal and political treachery, fascism, Ireland, stories themselves, parallelism of various kinds, names and confused identities, espionage, and Irish neutrality. In relation to all of these, the novel's predominant mood is one of anxiety and guilt. The chapter attempts to chart the inscription within the novel, in various modes of concealment, of Bowen's own wartime activities. In addition, extensive treatment is given to forms of theatricality in the novel and to Bowen's sense of what a postwar Ireland might become.Less
This chapter offers a lengthy reading of Bowen's wartime novel, The Heat of the Day, considering it in tandem with various of its contexts, notably Bowen's wartime reports from neutral Ireland to Churchill's government — which some considered a form of espionage — and the diaries of her wartime love, Charles Ritchie, a high-ranking Canadian diplomat. These contexts establish a frame for interpreting the novel's notoriously slippery preoccupations with personal and political treachery, fascism, Ireland, stories themselves, parallelism of various kinds, names and confused identities, espionage, and Irish neutrality. In relation to all of these, the novel's predominant mood is one of anxiety and guilt. The chapter attempts to chart the inscription within the novel, in various modes of concealment, of Bowen's own wartime activities. In addition, extensive treatment is given to forms of theatricality in the novel and to Bowen's sense of what a postwar Ireland might become.
Yoon Sun Lee
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195162356
- eISBN:
- 9780199787852
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195162356.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century Literature and Romanticism
A clue to Burke's conception of the public sphere can be found in the theatricality of his rhetorical tropes. Unlike radicals such as Priestley, who defined the public sphere as the exercise of ...
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A clue to Burke's conception of the public sphere can be found in the theatricality of his rhetorical tropes. Unlike radicals such as Priestley, who defined the public sphere as the exercise of rational agency, Burke saw the public sphere of the ancient regime France and Britain as constituted by elaborate fictions that were a matter of public knowledge and consensus. Fictions such as chivalry beneficially blurred the distinctions between agency and passivity, domination and subordination and gave rise to a distinctively ironic, self-conscious strain of civic emotion. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, as well as in other writings and speeches, Burke praised Britain's tradition of skillfully manipulating conventional deference. The practices of actors and theatrical audiences exemplify for Burke the type of emotional response that rests on voluntary complicity and the disavowal of knowledge.Less
A clue to Burke's conception of the public sphere can be found in the theatricality of his rhetorical tropes. Unlike radicals such as Priestley, who defined the public sphere as the exercise of rational agency, Burke saw the public sphere of the ancient regime France and Britain as constituted by elaborate fictions that were a matter of public knowledge and consensus. Fictions such as chivalry beneficially blurred the distinctions between agency and passivity, domination and subordination and gave rise to a distinctively ironic, self-conscious strain of civic emotion. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France, as well as in other writings and speeches, Burke praised Britain's tradition of skillfully manipulating conventional deference. The practices of actors and theatrical audiences exemplify for Burke the type of emotional response that rests on voluntary complicity and the disavowal of knowledge.
Dúnlaith Bird
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199644162
- eISBN:
- 9780199949984
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199644162.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature
Having considered the theorisation of performativity by Judith Butler and Mary Louise Pratt, this chapter uses theatrical performances both in the fictional writing of Colette and Rachilde and in the ...
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Having considered the theorisation of performativity by Judith Butler and Mary Louise Pratt, this chapter uses theatrical performances both in the fictional writing of Colette and Rachilde and in the travelogues of Isabelle Eberhardt to demonstrate how performance and performativity intertwine in the disorderly motion of vagabondage. The second section examines the Orient as a staging space for female movement, where a potent form of gender proxemics comes into play between the body of the woman travel writer and her Oriental subjects. The travelogue becomes a location of misfiring gender constructions, temporary contact zones and dramatic destruction. Finally, the chapter explores the disconcerting effects produced when textuality and the female body in motion collide in vagabondage travelogues.Less
Having considered the theorisation of performativity by Judith Butler and Mary Louise Pratt, this chapter uses theatrical performances both in the fictional writing of Colette and Rachilde and in the travelogues of Isabelle Eberhardt to demonstrate how performance and performativity intertwine in the disorderly motion of vagabondage. The second section examines the Orient as a staging space for female movement, where a potent form of gender proxemics comes into play between the body of the woman travel writer and her Oriental subjects. The travelogue becomes a location of misfiring gender constructions, temporary contact zones and dramatic destruction. Finally, the chapter explores the disconcerting effects produced when textuality and the female body in motion collide in vagabondage travelogues.
Sruti Bala
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781526100771
- eISBN:
- 9781526138927
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526100771.001.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Visual Culture
The gestures of participatory art offers a critical investigation of key debates in relation to participatory art, spanning the domains of applied and community theatre, immersive performance as well ...
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The gestures of participatory art offers a critical investigation of key debates in relation to participatory art, spanning the domains of applied and community theatre, immersive performance as well as the visual arts. Rather than seeking a genre-based definition, it asks how artists, audiences and art practices approach the subject of participation beyond the predetermined options allocated to them. In doing so, it inquires into the ways that artworks participate in civic life. Participation is the utopian sweet dream that has turned into a nightmare in contemporary neoliberal societies. Yet can the participatory ideal be discarded or merely replaced with another term, just because it has become disemboweled into a tool of pacification? The gestures of participatory art insists that the concept of participation must be re-imagined and shifted onto other registers. It proposes the concept of the gesture as a rewarding way of theorizing participatory art. The gesture is simultaneously an expression of an inner attitude as well as a social habitude; it is situated in between image, speech and action. The study reads the gestural as a way to link discussions on participatory art to broader issues of citizenship and collective action. Moving from reflections on institutional critique and impact to concrete analyses of moments of unsolicited, delicate participation or refusal, the book examines a range of practices from India, Sudan, Guatemala and El Salvador, the Lebanon, the Netherlands and Germany. It engages with the critiques of participation and pleads for a critical reclaiming of participatory practices.Less
The gestures of participatory art offers a critical investigation of key debates in relation to participatory art, spanning the domains of applied and community theatre, immersive performance as well as the visual arts. Rather than seeking a genre-based definition, it asks how artists, audiences and art practices approach the subject of participation beyond the predetermined options allocated to them. In doing so, it inquires into the ways that artworks participate in civic life. Participation is the utopian sweet dream that has turned into a nightmare in contemporary neoliberal societies. Yet can the participatory ideal be discarded or merely replaced with another term, just because it has become disemboweled into a tool of pacification? The gestures of participatory art insists that the concept of participation must be re-imagined and shifted onto other registers. It proposes the concept of the gesture as a rewarding way of theorizing participatory art. The gesture is simultaneously an expression of an inner attitude as well as a social habitude; it is situated in between image, speech and action. The study reads the gestural as a way to link discussions on participatory art to broader issues of citizenship and collective action. Moving from reflections on institutional critique and impact to concrete analyses of moments of unsolicited, delicate participation or refusal, the book examines a range of practices from India, Sudan, Guatemala and El Salvador, the Lebanon, the Netherlands and Germany. It engages with the critiques of participation and pleads for a critical reclaiming of participatory practices.
Gillian Russell
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198122630
- eISBN:
- 9780191671500
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198122630.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
This book reveals the importance of the theatre in the shaping of response to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815). The author explores the roles of the military and navy as both actors ...
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This book reveals the importance of the theatre in the shaping of response to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815). The author explores the roles of the military and navy as both actors and audiences, and shows their performances to be crucial to their self-perception as actors fighting on behalf of an often distant domestic audience. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars of 1793–1815 had profound consequences for British society, politics, and culture. In this study of the cultural dimension of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the author examines an important dimension of the experience of them: theatricality. Through this study, the theatre emerges as a place where battles were celebrated in the form of spectacular re-enactments, and where the tensions of mobilization on a hitherto unprecedented scale were played out in the form of riots and disturbances. Members of the military and the navy were actively engaged in such shows, taking to the stage as actors in the theatres of Britain, in ships off Portsmouth, and in the garrisons and battlefields of continental Europe and the empire.Less
This book reveals the importance of the theatre in the shaping of response to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815). The author explores the roles of the military and navy as both actors and audiences, and shows their performances to be crucial to their self-perception as actors fighting on behalf of an often distant domestic audience. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars of 1793–1815 had profound consequences for British society, politics, and culture. In this study of the cultural dimension of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the author examines an important dimension of the experience of them: theatricality. Through this study, the theatre emerges as a place where battles were celebrated in the form of spectacular re-enactments, and where the tensions of mobilization on a hitherto unprecedented scale were played out in the form of riots and disturbances. Members of the military and the navy were actively engaged in such shows, taking to the stage as actors in the theatres of Britain, in ships off Portsmouth, and in the garrisons and battlefields of continental Europe and the empire.
David Maskell
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151616
- eISBN:
- 9780191672774
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151616.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This study is the first systematic exploration of Racine's theatricality. It is based on a close examination of all Racine's plays and on evidence for performance of them from the seventeenth century ...
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This study is the first systematic exploration of Racine's theatricality. It is based on a close examination of all Racine's plays and on evidence for performance of them from the seventeenth century to the present day. The author considers, with the help of illustrations, the relationship between verbal and visual effects. He shows how the decor in plays such as Andromaque, Britannicus, and Berenice is significant for the action, and indicates the rich, often symbolic implication of stage properties and physical gestures, particularly in Mithridate, Phedre, and Athalie. Racine's usually neglected single comedy, Les Plaideurs, is shown to cast light on the theatrical language of his eleven tragedies. Some familiar topics of tragedy — moral ambiguity, error, and transcendence — emerge in a fresh light, and the concept of the tragic genre is critically examined from the theatrical standpoint. This study challenges many long-established views of Racine and lays the foundation for a reassessment of his role in French drama. It also opens new perspectives on his relationship with dramatists writing in other languages.Less
This study is the first systematic exploration of Racine's theatricality. It is based on a close examination of all Racine's plays and on evidence for performance of them from the seventeenth century to the present day. The author considers, with the help of illustrations, the relationship between verbal and visual effects. He shows how the decor in plays such as Andromaque, Britannicus, and Berenice is significant for the action, and indicates the rich, often symbolic implication of stage properties and physical gestures, particularly in Mithridate, Phedre, and Athalie. Racine's usually neglected single comedy, Les Plaideurs, is shown to cast light on the theatrical language of his eleven tragedies. Some familiar topics of tragedy — moral ambiguity, error, and transcendence — emerge in a fresh light, and the concept of the tragic genre is critically examined from the theatrical standpoint. This study challenges many long-established views of Racine and lays the foundation for a reassessment of his role in French drama. It also opens new perspectives on his relationship with dramatists writing in other languages.
Michael Hawcroft
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151852
- eISBN:
- 9780191672866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151852.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, European Literature
The eleven tragedies of Jean Racine have served as a testing ground for the different approaches to the study of literature that have proliferated since 1945. Among many examples are R. C. Knight's ...
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The eleven tragedies of Jean Racine have served as a testing ground for the different approaches to the study of literature that have proliferated since 1945. Among many examples are R. C. Knight's study of the relationship of Racine's plays to those of his ancient Greek predecessors, L. Goldmann's Marxist analysis, C. Mauron's psychoanalytical study, R. Jasinski's attempt to find connections between Racine's life and his works, and R. Barthes's structuralist analysis of the anthropology of Racine's tragic world. This book hopes to make new statements about Racinian rhetoric and theatricality which may to some extent modify currently held views about Racine's theatre. It also hopes that the combination of the rhetorical and theatrical perspectives will provide some insight into the success of Racine's tragedies on the stage. A major aim of the book is to explore the possibility of extending the analytical uses to which the critic might put the commonly neglected first two parts of rhetoric: inventio and dispositio.Less
The eleven tragedies of Jean Racine have served as a testing ground for the different approaches to the study of literature that have proliferated since 1945. Among many examples are R. C. Knight's study of the relationship of Racine's plays to those of his ancient Greek predecessors, L. Goldmann's Marxist analysis, C. Mauron's psychoanalytical study, R. Jasinski's attempt to find connections between Racine's life and his works, and R. Barthes's structuralist analysis of the anthropology of Racine's tragic world. This book hopes to make new statements about Racinian rhetoric and theatricality which may to some extent modify currently held views about Racine's theatre. It also hopes that the combination of the rhetorical and theatrical perspectives will provide some insight into the success of Racine's tragedies on the stage. A major aim of the book is to explore the possibility of extending the analytical uses to which the critic might put the commonly neglected first two parts of rhetoric: inventio and dispositio.
Michael Hawcroft
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151852
- eISBN:
- 9780191672866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151852.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, European Literature
This chapter considers what the 17th-century dramatic critic d'Aubignac means when he says that in tragedies of the period to speak is to act. It argues that a plausible interpretation is that the ...
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This chapter considers what the 17th-century dramatic critic d'Aubignac means when he says that in tragedies of the period to speak is to act. It argues that a plausible interpretation is that the characters' words constitute actions in that, most often, they are performing acts of persuasion. According to the teaching of rhetoric, the orator wishing to persuade may use visual means, and Jean Racine's characters certainly do make use of actio. Yet most of the characters' energies seem to go into producing arguments and into structuring their presentation of them. It follows that their verbal action should lend itself to analysis according to rhetoricians' recommendations for inventio and dispositio. This chapter also examines those features of inventio and dispositio that are essential for an understanding of the ensuing analyses. It suggests that there are in fact obvious links between persuasive activity and theatricality, often noted by rhetoricians, and known to Racine. Some affinities between rhetoric and drama are also discussed, along with three kinds of oratory: judicial or forensic, deliberative, and demonstrative or epideictic.Less
This chapter considers what the 17th-century dramatic critic d'Aubignac means when he says that in tragedies of the period to speak is to act. It argues that a plausible interpretation is that the characters' words constitute actions in that, most often, they are performing acts of persuasion. According to the teaching of rhetoric, the orator wishing to persuade may use visual means, and Jean Racine's characters certainly do make use of actio. Yet most of the characters' energies seem to go into producing arguments and into structuring their presentation of them. It follows that their verbal action should lend itself to analysis according to rhetoricians' recommendations for inventio and dispositio. This chapter also examines those features of inventio and dispositio that are essential for an understanding of the ensuing analyses. It suggests that there are in fact obvious links between persuasive activity and theatricality, often noted by rhetoricians, and known to Racine. Some affinities between rhetoric and drama are also discussed, along with three kinds of oratory: judicial or forensic, deliberative, and demonstrative or epideictic.
Michael Hawcroft
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151852
- eISBN:
- 9780191672866
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151852.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, European Literature
The depiction of characters in conflict with one another is a potent source of theatricality. However, it is not always the case that characters are in conflict with their interlocutors. Sometimes ...
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The depiction of characters in conflict with one another is a potent source of theatricality. However, it is not always the case that characters are in conflict with their interlocutors. Sometimes they are very much in agreement. This chapter focuses on the most obvious occurrences of apparent agreement between characters, namely, discussions between protagonists and the much maligned confidants. It suggests that some common views of the role of confidants in Jean Racine's tragedy require modification in the light of a rhetorical analysis of their encounters with their principal partners. It argues that Racine's use of persuasive interaction in these encounters contributes to their theatrical impact and also allows these scenes to be seen as instances of informal oratory, even though the oratory may be of a different tenor from that of protagonists who are in disagreement.Less
The depiction of characters in conflict with one another is a potent source of theatricality. However, it is not always the case that characters are in conflict with their interlocutors. Sometimes they are very much in agreement. This chapter focuses on the most obvious occurrences of apparent agreement between characters, namely, discussions between protagonists and the much maligned confidants. It suggests that some common views of the role of confidants in Jean Racine's tragedy require modification in the light of a rhetorical analysis of their encounters with their principal partners. It argues that Racine's use of persuasive interaction in these encounters contributes to their theatrical impact and also allows these scenes to be seen as instances of informal oratory, even though the oratory may be of a different tenor from that of protagonists who are in disagreement.
Marc Baer
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112501
- eISBN:
- 9780191670787
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112501.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter discusses the interpenetration of theatricality and disorder. An interpretative framework for the topics included in the book is also given in this chapter. It is is argued that the ...
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This chapter discusses the interpenetration of theatricality and disorder. An interpretative framework for the topics included in the book is also given in this chapter. It is is argued that the mental universe of many Old Price rioters had severely limited political perceptions and possibilities. Additionally, there are three propositions discussed in this chapter that are related to the theatre during the eighteenth and nineteenth century.Less
This chapter discusses the interpenetration of theatricality and disorder. An interpretative framework for the topics included in the book is also given in this chapter. It is is argued that the mental universe of many Old Price rioters had severely limited political perceptions and possibilities. Additionally, there are three propositions discussed in this chapter that are related to the theatre during the eighteenth and nineteenth century.
Marc Baer
- Published in print:
- 1992
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198112501
- eISBN:
- 9780191670787
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198112501.003.0012
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This chapter discusses a number of arguments and opinions about the 1809 theatre riot. One opinion is that of Francis Place, who thought that the riot was caused by Catalani, private boxes, and new ...
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This chapter discusses a number of arguments and opinions about the 1809 theatre riot. One opinion is that of Francis Place, who thought that the riot was caused by Catalani, private boxes, and new prices. It can be said that the essence of the controls used against those participating in the breakdown of social order can be found in a certain perception of the past and an essential theatricality of life.Less
This chapter discusses a number of arguments and opinions about the 1809 theatre riot. One opinion is that of Francis Place, who thought that the riot was caused by Catalani, private boxes, and new prices. It can be said that the essence of the controls used against those participating in the breakdown of social order can be found in a certain perception of the past and an essential theatricality of life.
David Maskell
- Published in print:
- 1991
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151616
- eISBN:
- 9780191672774
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151616.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter discusses ways in which the visual perspective could lead to the reassessment of Racine's place in the French dramatic tradition and in relation to drama in other languages. Particular ...
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This chapter discusses ways in which the visual perspective could lead to the reassessment of Racine's place in the French dramatic tradition and in relation to drama in other languages. Particular topics included in this chapter are the comparisons of Racine's plays and theatrical language to his contemporaries, the measurement of Racine's theatricality against French tragedies, the visual traditions with which he may have learned his theatricality, and the Greek tragedies which influenced and inspired Racine.Less
This chapter discusses ways in which the visual perspective could lead to the reassessment of Racine's place in the French dramatic tradition and in relation to drama in other languages. Particular topics included in this chapter are the comparisons of Racine's plays and theatrical language to his contemporaries, the measurement of Racine's theatricality against French tragedies, the visual traditions with which he may have learned his theatricality, and the Greek tragedies which influenced and inspired Racine.
Carole Hillenbrand
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748625727
- eISBN:
- 9780748671359
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748625727.003.0005
- Subject:
- Religion, Islam
This chapter examines the strategies and tropes used by the Arab and Persian chroniclers in the medieval Muslim narratives of the battle of Manzikert, and the didactic purposes for which these ...
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This chapter examines the strategies and tropes used by the Arab and Persian chroniclers in the medieval Muslim narratives of the battle of Manzikert, and the didactic purposes for which these narratives are used. Qur'anic resonances, such as presenting the arrogant Byzantine emperor Romanus as a latter-day Pharaoh, and other Muslim elements in these accounts, such as the importance of positioning the battle on a Friday, are discussed. Narrative techniques, including theatrical features, are analysed. The influence of the Mirrors for Princes advice literature is also examined. This chapter emphasises in its conclusion that these accounts can hardly be described as providing concrete details about the actual battle of Manzikert; instead, they are vehicles through which Arabic and Persian writers can praise their Turkish overlords, can vaunt the military prowess traditionally associated with the Turks, and – through the triumphal symbol of none other than the captured Byzantine emperor himself – can proclaim the triumph of Islam over Christianity. Thus Manzikert provides not only a spur but also an examplar for subsequent Muslim victories over the Christian foe.Less
This chapter examines the strategies and tropes used by the Arab and Persian chroniclers in the medieval Muslim narratives of the battle of Manzikert, and the didactic purposes for which these narratives are used. Qur'anic resonances, such as presenting the arrogant Byzantine emperor Romanus as a latter-day Pharaoh, and other Muslim elements in these accounts, such as the importance of positioning the battle on a Friday, are discussed. Narrative techniques, including theatrical features, are analysed. The influence of the Mirrors for Princes advice literature is also examined. This chapter emphasises in its conclusion that these accounts can hardly be described as providing concrete details about the actual battle of Manzikert; instead, they are vehicles through which Arabic and Persian writers can praise their Turkish overlords, can vaunt the military prowess traditionally associated with the Turks, and – through the triumphal symbol of none other than the captured Byzantine emperor himself – can proclaim the triumph of Islam over Christianity. Thus Manzikert provides not only a spur but also an examplar for subsequent Muslim victories over the Christian foe.
Alaina Lemon
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520294271
- eISBN:
- 9780520967458
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520294271.001.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Anthropology, Global
Cold War paranoia can only partly describe or explain the twentieth-century dreams of telepathy. The nightmare shades of mind control and crowd frenzy have long alternated with the pastels of love ...
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Cold War paranoia can only partly describe or explain the twentieth-century dreams of telepathy. The nightmare shades of mind control and crowd frenzy have long alternated with the pastels of love and collective effervescence. Both extremes materialized over time, along tangled circuits of wars, events, and interactions staged across borders since at least the nineteenth century. The Cold War and its fences fed fascination with the workings and the failures of contact and communication. Opposed sides accused each other of jamming media and spinning propaganda even while they mirrored fantasies of connection. This book contrasts and connects Russian and American channels and means to check channels, with special attention to intersections of the telepathic with the theatrical. It theorizes links between historically layered struggles over technologies for intuition and dominant models of communication—commonsense or theoretical. It demonstrates that theories resting on models of individual sincerity and of dyadic communication warp understandings of the Soviet Union and Russia—and thus of the United States as well. It proposes that attention to the means of making and checking contact, that is, to the phatic functions in language, offers a way out of the impasses and paradoxes of paranoia.Less
Cold War paranoia can only partly describe or explain the twentieth-century dreams of telepathy. The nightmare shades of mind control and crowd frenzy have long alternated with the pastels of love and collective effervescence. Both extremes materialized over time, along tangled circuits of wars, events, and interactions staged across borders since at least the nineteenth century. The Cold War and its fences fed fascination with the workings and the failures of contact and communication. Opposed sides accused each other of jamming media and spinning propaganda even while they mirrored fantasies of connection. This book contrasts and connects Russian and American channels and means to check channels, with special attention to intersections of the telepathic with the theatrical. It theorizes links between historically layered struggles over technologies for intuition and dominant models of communication—commonsense or theoretical. It demonstrates that theories resting on models of individual sincerity and of dyadic communication warp understandings of the Soviet Union and Russia—and thus of the United States as well. It proposes that attention to the means of making and checking contact, that is, to the phatic functions in language, offers a way out of the impasses and paradoxes of paranoia.
Jeehee Hong
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824855376
- eISBN:
- 9780824868680
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824855376.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
In eleventh century China, dazzling theatrical spectacles were performed not only for the living, but also the dead. Beyond urbanizing theaters and temple stages, developments in theatrical ...
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In eleventh century China, dazzling theatrical spectacles were performed not only for the living, but also the dead. Beyond urbanizing theaters and temple stages, developments in theatrical performances also materialized as conspicuous representations and entered underground tomb spaces. The occupants of these tombs exclusively belong to a kind of local elites who were affluent yet socially underprivileged, such as merchants or well-off farmers. Theater of the Dead is the first in-depth study of a rich corpus of funerary art representing theatrical performances that reveal their attitudes toward death and the netherworld. An overarching sense of intense theatricality revealed through close analyses of selected cases conveys a densely socialized vision of the netherworld. Referred to as “a social turn,” this phenomenon not only registers the visual and cultural tastes of the underrepresented group of people whose lives and deaths are largely unrecorded in historical texts, but also points to their growing interest in conceptualizing the sphere of the dead within the existing social framework. The book shows these particular elites’ position in the changing boundaries among social groups, and also provides a new frame for understanding the increasingly flexible boundaries between disparate rituals and religious practices in middle-period China.Less
In eleventh century China, dazzling theatrical spectacles were performed not only for the living, but also the dead. Beyond urbanizing theaters and temple stages, developments in theatrical performances also materialized as conspicuous representations and entered underground tomb spaces. The occupants of these tombs exclusively belong to a kind of local elites who were affluent yet socially underprivileged, such as merchants or well-off farmers. Theater of the Dead is the first in-depth study of a rich corpus of funerary art representing theatrical performances that reveal their attitudes toward death and the netherworld. An overarching sense of intense theatricality revealed through close analyses of selected cases conveys a densely socialized vision of the netherworld. Referred to as “a social turn,” this phenomenon not only registers the visual and cultural tastes of the underrepresented group of people whose lives and deaths are largely unrecorded in historical texts, but also points to their growing interest in conceptualizing the sphere of the dead within the existing social framework. The book shows these particular elites’ position in the changing boundaries among social groups, and also provides a new frame for understanding the increasingly flexible boundaries between disparate rituals and religious practices in middle-period China.
Scarlett Baron
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199693788
- eISBN:
- 9780191732157
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199693788.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, 20th-century Literature and Modernism, European Literature
Chapter 5 comprises three sections and focuses on Joyce’s engagement with Flaubert in Ulysses. The first section registers the marks of Joyce’s reading of Flaubert’s Tentation de saint Antoine. It ...
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Chapter 5 comprises three sections and focuses on Joyce’s engagement with Flaubert in Ulysses. The first section registers the marks of Joyce’s reading of Flaubert’s Tentation de saint Antoine. It looks in detail at Joyce’s references to a cluster of third- and fourth-century church heresiarchs in the light of Flaubert’s grouping of the same three figures in La Tentation, before examining Joyce’s transformative appropriations of La Tentation in ‘Circe’. The second section aligns the ‘citizen’ of ‘Cyclops’ with ‘le Citoyen’ in L’éducation sentimentale, suggesting that both characters embody their authors’ sceptical evaluation of some of the political and philosophical offshoots of the Enlightenment. The third section explores the intertextual relations between Bouvard et Pécuchet, the Dictionnaire des Idées Reçues, and the ‘Eumaeus’ and ‘Ithaca’ episodes of Ulysses, showing that these texts portray blind belief in facts and the catalogability of knowledge as a bourgeois perversion of Enlightenment intellectual ideals.Less
Chapter 5 comprises three sections and focuses on Joyce’s engagement with Flaubert in Ulysses. The first section registers the marks of Joyce’s reading of Flaubert’s Tentation de saint Antoine. It looks in detail at Joyce’s references to a cluster of third- and fourth-century church heresiarchs in the light of Flaubert’s grouping of the same three figures in La Tentation, before examining Joyce’s transformative appropriations of La Tentation in ‘Circe’. The second section aligns the ‘citizen’ of ‘Cyclops’ with ‘le Citoyen’ in L’éducation sentimentale, suggesting that both characters embody their authors’ sceptical evaluation of some of the political and philosophical offshoots of the Enlightenment. The third section explores the intertextual relations between Bouvard et Pécuchet, the Dictionnaire des Idées Reçues, and the ‘Eumaeus’ and ‘Ithaca’ episodes of Ulysses, showing that these texts portray blind belief in facts and the catalogability of knowledge as a bourgeois perversion of Enlightenment intellectual ideals.
