The Owl, the Nightingale and the Jew in the Thorn-bush: Relocating Anti-Semitism in Die Meistersinger

2016 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-35
Author(s):  
Thomas Grey ◽  
Kirsten Paige
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
German Culture ◽  
Poetic Tradition ◽  
The Past ◽  
Social Forms ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Debate Poetry ◽  
Poetic Diction ◽  
Alternative Reading

AbstractFor the past twenty-five years a key piece of evidence for an anti-Semitic subtext in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger has been identified in the Grimm Brothers’ anti-Semitic tale ‘The Jew in the Thorn-bush’ and a possible allusion to this in the text of Walther’s Act I ‘trial song’. This article argues that the passages in question are better explained with reference to a medieval poetic tradition still prevalent in nineteenth-century German culture involving the vocal contest between birds, paradigmatically the owl and the nightingale. Since the twelfth century, the owl and the nightingale have debated the merits of high and low art, religious themes, social forms, poetic diction and more. The associations of pedantry and harsh, coarse vocal character with the figure of the owl maps readily onto the negative traits of Beckmesser, just as the contrasting associations of the melodious nightingale with springtime, courtship and ‘natural’ musicality align with traits of Wagner’s artist-hero, Walther von Stolzing. Rather than displacing the possible anti-Semitic reading of Beckmesser, however, this alternative reading of the Beckmesser–Walther antagonism through the lens of avian conflict or debate poetry relocates that reading within a broader discursive and figurative context, one that is more commensurate with the possible role of anti-Semitic subtexts within Wagner’s music dramas in general.

Adventism, Apocalyptic, and the Cause of Liberty

1994 ◽  
Vol 63 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-249
Author(s):  
Douglas Morgan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Conservative Protestantism ◽  
Late Nineteenth

“I have felt like working three times as hard as ever since I came to understand that my Lord was coming back again,” reported revivalist Dwight L. Moody, the most prominent of nineteenth-century premillennialists. Moody's testimony to the motivating power of premillennialism points to the crucial role of that eschatology in conservative Protestantism since the late nineteenth century—a role delineated by several studies within the past twenty-five years. As a comprehensive interpretation of history which gives meaning and pattern to past, present, and future, and a role for the believer in the outworking of the divine program, premillennialism has been a driving force in the fundamentalistand evangelical movements.

Lesbian Perversity and Victorian Marriage: The 1864 Codrington Divorce Trial

1997 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha Vicinus
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Homosexual Behavior ◽  
Public Discussion ◽  
The Past ◽  
Control Information ◽  
Lesbian Sexuality ◽  
The Face ◽  
Female Homosexual Behavior

How and when did society first recognize women's homoerotic bonds? Were these romantic friendships fully accepted, or were they seen as problematic? Did the women involved see themselves as lesbians? These and other questions have been raised over the past twenty years by historians of lesbian sexuality. When Lillian Faderman in her pioneering survey of European and American lesbians declared the nineteenth century as the golden age of unproblematic romantic friendships, historians quickly responded with evidence to the contrary. Much of this debate has been focused on whether or not women could be considered “lesbian” before they claimed (or had forced on them) a publicly acknowledged identity. But the modern lesbian did not appear one day fully formed in the case studies of the fin-de-siècle sexologists; rather she was already a recognizable, if shadowy, subject for gossip among the sophisticated by at least the 1840s and 1850s. By examining closely a single divorce trial, I hope to show that literary and legal elites acknowledged lesbian sexuality in a variety of complex ways. Their uneasy disapproval encompassed both a self-conscious silence in the face of evidence and a desire to control information, lest it corrupt the innocent. Yet who can define the line between the ignorant and the informed? The very public discussion of the Codrington divorce, and most especially the role of the feminist, Emily Faithfull, in alienating Helen Codrington's affections from her husband, demonstrate the recognition of female homosexual behavior.

N.F.S. Grundtvig, Niels Bukh and Other 'Japanese' Heroes. The Educators Obara Kuniyoshi and Matsumae Shigeyoshi and Their Lessons from the Past of a Foreign Country

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-184 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret Mehl
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Physical Education ◽  
Educational System ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
The Past ◽  
Stereotypical Image ◽  
Cultural Borrowing ◽  
New Education

AbstractObara Kuniyoshi (1887–1977), the founder of Tamagawa Gakuen, and Matsumae Shigeyoshi (1901–1991), the founder of Tôkai Educational System (TES), were both inspired by Denmark and Danish education, although in different ways. Obara, a representative of the New Education Movement in Japan, became interested in Denmark when he heard about Danish gymnastics, which seemed to be ideally suited to his vision of rigorous but non-competitive physical education. In 1931, two years after founding his own school, he succeeded in inviting the Danish gymnast Niels Bukh and a group of his students to Japan. The interest in gymnastics sparked off a wider interest in Denmark. Matsumae Shigeyoshi's attention was drawn to Denmark and to the Danish folk high schools as a result of his encounter with Uchimura Kanzô. Although not an educator by training, he decided to devote his life to education. This article explores the role of cultural borrowing in the thought and educational praxis of Obara and Matsumae. Although they uncritically accepted a Danish cultural memory (Denmark's recovery from military defeat in the nineteenth century through spiritual strength and education) and cultivated a stereotypical image, the adaptation of this image to suit their own needs represents a highly creative process which resulted in two successful private schools.

scholarly journals The Ways of the Nation: Messianic and Universalist Nationalism 161 in Renieris, Zambelios and Paparrigopoulos

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Pericles Vallianos
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
The Past ◽  
Historical Continuity ◽  
Western View ◽  
Historical Periods ◽  
Dominant Theory ◽  
Of Greece

The vital cultural project during the nineteenth century was the formation of an authoritative version of the national consciousness that serve to homogenise the disparate populations of newly independent Greece. Three towering intellectuals led the way in this process: Markos Renieris, Spyridon Zambelios and Konstantinos Paparrigopoulos. All three adhered to the since dominant theory of the historical continuity of the Greek nation from prehistoric times to the present but held sharply different views concerning the role of Greece in the modern world. Renieris stressed the European vocation of today’s Hellenic culture, given that the foundations of European civilisation were initially Hellenic as well. Zambelios put forward an anti-Western view of the nation’s destiny, tinged with theological fanaticism and a mystical historicism. Paparrigopoulos was the consummate historian who emphasised the links between the Greek present and the past, chiefly through the medium of language, but without hiding the sharp discontinuitiesbetween historical periods.

Punishing the Abject Child

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justine Gieni
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
German Culture ◽  
Young Readers ◽  
Childhood Death ◽  
The Face

Justine Gieni examines the language and illustrations of Heinrich Hoffman’s 1845 picturebook Struwwelpeter, a seminal text in the genre that, on the surface at least, makes explicit use of horrifying methods of childhood death and dismemberment as a means of cautioning young readers to behave according to the strictures of its era. In her essay, however, Gieni zeroes in on the transgressive nature of Hoffman’s tales, concentrating specifically on the role of body horror in the text. Entering the debate about the book’s appropriateness for child audiences, Gieni focuses especially on the violence committed against the child’s body in the book, arguing that, through the “powers of horror,” Hoffman satirizes the pedagogical didacticism of nineteenth-century German culture and empowers young readers, allowing them to experience the thrill of derisive laughter in the face of brutal authoritarianism. She also illuminatingly considers the publication, relevance, and reception of Struwwelpeter today, discussing how it has been rebranded as a text for “knowing” adult audiences with an emphasis more on its horror than its humor, as well as the implications of such a shift in the text’s purported readership and thematic intentions.

scholarly journals EDITORIAL

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-8
Author(s):  
FABIO BIONDI
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Early Music ◽  
The Past ◽  
Symphonic Orchestra ◽  
New Year’S Eve

The revival of early music performed on original instruments has resurrected the role of the violinist-conductor ‘maestro dei concerti’, one historical designation among many describing a conductor equipped with an instrument rather than a baton. Prior to this revival, one rarely saw an orchestra led without a baton, particularly if the orchestra was sizeable. Exceptions included a few historically minded ensembles – here I'd like to mention I Musici of Rome for the baroque repertory and, for a case involving a large symphonic orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic's 1996 New Year's Eve Concert, at which Lorin Maazel directed one of the popular Strauss encores from the violin. Yet the idea of having a violinist conduct a romantic symphony, let alone a nineteenth-century opera, seems hardly conceivable today. Such a lost practice, though common in the past, would be bound to baffle modern audiences.

scholarly journals The 1947 Seelisberg Conference: The Foundation of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian M. Rutishauser
Keyword(s):  
Vantage Point ◽  
Specific Work ◽  
Working Process ◽  
60Th Anniversary ◽  
The Past ◽  
Protestant Churches ◽  
Anti Semitism ◽  
Joint Declaration ◽  
Looking Back

On the 60th Anniversary of the 1947 International Emergency Conference on Anti-Semitism in Seelisberg, Switzerland, this article provides an overview and analysis of: historical events leading up to this conference; the working process and results of the conference with a focus on the specific work of its various commissions, especially that of Commission III on the Role of the Churches and the Ten Points (Theses) of Seelisberg. Looking back from the present-day vantage point, it comments on the effects of its work over the past several decades, and closes with a brief summary of the 60th Anniversary Jewish-Christian scholarly conference hosted at Lasalle-Haus in Bad Schonbrunn, Switzerland -including the 2007 joint declaration by the Swiss Bishops Conference, the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches and the Swiss Federation of Jewish Communities. An Addendum to the article provides a photograph and a list of the 1947 conference officers and commission participants.

Historical and present-day child labour: is there a gap or a bridge between them?

2001 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARJATTA RAHIKAINEN
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Developing Economies ◽  
Child Labour ◽  
Labour Migration ◽  
Foreign Investors ◽  
The Past ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century ◽  
Empirical Case Studies

This article suggests that analyses of child labour today should take as their point of comparison poorer nineteenth-century continental European countries, rather than the more commonly cited analogy of industrializing Britain. Two aspects of comparison between the nineteenth-century Finnish experience and today's developing economies are especially relevant. The first is the role of foreign investors in introducing industrial child labour in the early stages of industrialization. The second is labour migration, and particularly that of children. Industrial child labour in nineteenth-century Finland, and labour migration from Finland to St Petersburg, serve as empirical case studies. Finally, the author suggests that new apologies for industrial child labour in the past can be linked with the late-twentieth-century expansion of child labour.

scholarly journals Lived Historiography: National History as a Script to the Past

2021 ◽  
pp. 29-57
Author(s):  
Pertti Haapala
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Identities ◽  
History Writing ◽  
National History ◽  
Political Role ◽  
The Past

AbstractThe chapter studies the role of historiography in experiencing the past. Haapala analyzes how written history and its conceptualizations offered people a framework for understanding, defining, and living the past emotionally, and understanding how their present experiences became connected to history. It is claimed here that academic historiography often played a major role in creating historical and national identities by providing a script, as well as intellectual and emotional tools, to live the past. National history was invented by nineteenth-century intellectuals and it became a powerful, imagined narrative for the nation for two centuries. That success can be explained only by realizing the societal and political role of history writing as an autobiography of a society.

The Case of Literature

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arne Höcker
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Legal Responsibility ◽  
Case Based Reasoning ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
The Past ◽  
Psychological Knowledge ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Scientific Narratives

This book offers a radical reassessment of the modern European literary canon. The book's reinterpretations of Goethe, Schiller, Büchner, Döblin, Musil, and Kafka show how literary and scientific narratives have determined each other over the past three centuries, and it argues that modern literature not only contributed to the development of the human sciences but also established itself as the privileged medium for a modern style of case-based reasoning. The book traces the role of narrative fiction in relation to the scientific knowledge of the individual from eighteenth-century psychology and pedagogy to nineteenth-century sexology and criminology to twentieth-century psychoanalysis. The book demonstrates how modern authors consciously engaged casuistic forms of writing to arrive at new understandings of literary discourse that correspond to major historical transformations in the function of fiction. It argues for the centrality of literature to changes in the conceptions of psychological knowledge production around 1800; legal responsibility and institutionalized forms of decision-making throughout the nineteenth century; and literature's own realist demands in the early twentieth century.

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