LOVE CONQUERS ALL: CUPID, PHILIP V AND THE ALLEGORICAL ZARZUELA DURING THE WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION (1701–1714)

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-45
Author(s):  
MARIA VIRGINIA ACUÑA
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Instability ◽  
Erotic Love ◽  
Cultural Understanding ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cross Dressing ◽  
Theatrical Practice ◽  
First Time

ABSTRACTAn unprecedented shift in the portrayal of Cupid took place in the Spanish mythological zarzuela during the years surrounding the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). For the first time ever, Cupid was depicted not as a god of chaste or erotic love, but as a god at war with other deities. And in every work, a female actor-singer, not a male performer, played the fiery but mournful character. In this article I first explore the cultural understanding of Cupid in early eighteenth-century Spain as articulated by Spanish mythographers of the era, and as seen in the earliest representations of Cupid in Spanish theatre. I then investigate the intersection of myth, allegory, war and music theatre in a case study – the zarzuela Las nuevas armas de amor (Love's New Weapons, 1711) – suggesting that in this work Cupid functioned as an allegorical representation of the Spanish king, and that the deity's struggles for power mirrored the monarch's plight during a time of great political instability. Moreover, I argue that the pre-existing local theatrical practice of cross-dressing allowed for the portrayal of a defeated and sobbing Cupid in the zarzuela.

Handel’s Transformative Compositional Practices

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 479-502
Author(s):  
David Ross Hurley
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Original Music ◽  
Developing Variation ◽  
Compositional History ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Musical Transformations ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
First Time ◽  
Variation Process

In recent decades singers of Handel’s music have made great strides in recapturing the art of embellishing his music, thus breathing new life into forms such as the da capo aria. Yet Handel’s own “variations”—his development and transformation of musical material in his vocal music, important for understanding his compositional practice with borrowed as well as (presumably) original music—are not yet fully explored or appreciated. Admittedly, scholars have discussed musical procedures such as inserting, deleting, and reordering musical materials, as well as other Baroque combinatorial practices in Handel’s arias, but the musical transformations I discuss here are closer to a specifically Handelian brand of developing variation. To my knowledge, the concept of developing variation has never before been applied to early eighteenth-century music. I explore the relation of developing variation to drama (also rarely done) in two of Handel’s arias, providing a close examination of “Ombre, piante” from the opera Rodelinda and new thoughts about “Lament not thus,” originally intended for the oratorio Belshazzar. Although these arias belong to different genres and different stages of Handel’s career, they both exhibit material that undergoes a kind of progressive variation process that has tangible musical and dramatic ramifications, of interest to opera specialists and performers. Furthermore, both arias have a complicated compositional history; I offer fresh insights into the aesthetic qualities of each version, thereby throwing light on Handel’s possible compositional intentions. This article also discloses for the first time some recurring musical passages shared between “Lament not thus” and other pieces that could influence the listener’s interpretation of certain musico-dramatic gestures.

scholarly journals The Parthenon, Pericles and King Solomon: a case study of Ottoman archaeological imagination in Greece

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-274
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Key Fowden
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
The City

What made Athens different from other multi-layered cities absorbed into the Ottoman Empire was the strength of its ancient reputation for learning that echoed across the Arabic and Ottoman worlds. But not only sages were remembered and Islamized in Athens; sometimes political figures were too. In the early eighteenth century a mufti of Athens, Mahmud Efendi, wrote a rarely studiedHistory of the City of Sages (Tarih-i Medinetü’l-Hukema)in which he transformed Pericles into a wise leader on a par with the Qur'anic King Solomon and linked the Parthenon mosque to Solomon's temple in Jerusalem.

Literature and Party Politics at the Accession of Queen Anne

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Hone
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Daniel Defoe ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Alexander Pope ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Joseph Addison ◽  
Nahum Tate ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
New Generation ◽  
First Time

This book is the first detailed study of the final Stuart succession crisis. It demonstrates for the first time the centrality of debates about royal succession to the literature and political culture of the early eighteenth century. Using previously neglected, misunderstood, and newly discovered material, it shows that arguments about Anne’s right to the throne were crucial to the construction of nascent party political identities. Literary texts were the principal vehicle through which contemporaries debated the new queen’s legitimacy. This book sheds fresh light on canonical authors such as Daniel Defoe, Alexander Pope, and Joseph Addison by setting their writing alongside the work of lesser known but nonetheless important figures such as John Tutchin, William Pittis, Nahum Tate, John Dennis, Henry Sacheverell, Charles Leslie, and other anonymous and pseudonymous authors. Through close historical readings, it shows how this new generation of poets, preachers, and pamphleteers transformed older models of succession writing by Milton, Dryden, and others, and imbued conventional genres such as panegyric and satire with their own distinctive poetics. By immersing the major authors in their milieu, and reconstructing the political and material contexts in which those authors wrote, this book demonstrates the vitality of debates about royal succession in early eighteenth-century culture.

scholarly journals JOHN TUTCHIN'S OBSERVATOR, COMMENT SERIALS, AND THE ‘RAGE OF PARTY’ IN BRITAIN, 1678 – c. 1730

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 862-884
Author(s):  
EDWARD TAYLOR
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Jonathan Swift ◽  
Insufficient Attention ◽  
The Press ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Topical Analysis ◽  
Eighteenth Century Britain

AbstractThe importance of print in the ‘rage of party’ of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Britain is well known, but scholars have paid insufficient attention to the press phenomenon that provided the most persistent and undiluted partisan voices of the era, the comment serial. Comment serials – regular printed publications designed explicitly to present topical analysis, opinion, and advice – were fashioned as powerful weapons for partisan combat. Due to their regularity and flexibility, they could be more potent than other forms of topical print, especially pamphlets and newspapers. Although many publications have been individually recognized as comment serials, such as Roger L'Estrange's Observator (1681–7), Daniel Defoe's Review (1704–13), and Jonathan Swift and others’ Examiner (1710–14), their development as a holistic phenomenon has not been properly understood. They first appeared during the Succession Crisis (1678–82), and proliferated under Queen Anne (1702–14), supporting both tory and whig causes. Through widespread consumption, both direct and indirect, they shaped partisan culture in various ways, including by reinforcing and galvanizing partisan identities, facilitating the development of partisan ‘reading communities’, and manifesting and representing party divisions in public. This article focuses on John Tutchin's Observator (1702–12) as a case-study of a major comment serial.

The Politics of Anti-Corruption

2021 ◽  
pp. 297-340
Author(s):  
Mark Knights
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Dimensions ◽  
The Many ◽  
Work Done ◽  
Modern Era

As other chapters have made clear, the corruption of politics was a concern of the pre-modern era, especially in relation to political officers. Yet alongside the corruption of politics there was also a very strong politics of corruption. ‘Anti-corruption’ was nearly always political, in the sense of having a political agenda, implicit or explicit, behind it. This chapter argues that these political dimensions need to be recognised more than they have been. The chapter examines the ‘work’ done by the discourse of corruption, underlining its emotive power and its capacity both to challenge political rules and to help define boundaries of legitimate behaviour. The politics of anti-corruption is highlighted in the imperial context through a case study of early eighteenth-century Barbados. The chapter then examines these political functions in relation to the many highly politicised impeachments for corruption, from 1621 to 1806.

The Musical Activities of the Spalding Gentlemen's Society

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 65-90
Author(s):  
Simon David Iain Fleming
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
The World ◽  
Learned Societies ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
First Time ◽  
Musical Activities

The Spalding Gentlemen's Society is one of the oldest extant learned societies in the world. At the time of its foundation over 300 years ago such societies were popular and membership was viewed as an important attribute of middle-class life. Most societies were short-lived and extant references to them are rare. What sets Spalding over all others is not only its longevity but also the quality of its records, which contain numerous references to music. This article aims to present the musical activities of the Society and to put them into the context of the early eighteenth-century English and European musical world. It begins with a discussion of the annual anniversary concerts and a detailed study of the 1738–46 programmes, commenting on the music performed and those who took part; these programmes are given as appendices. This research is further augmented by an examination of the music-related matters discussed at their meetings and other events that took place in Spalding. It may be impossible to ascertain how unique the Society's musical activities were, but it is rare to have such detail, and this is the first time that these important records, at least in relation to music, have been discussed in any depth.

Presenting “Truth” in Early Eighteenth-Century Travel Narratives

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-46
Author(s):  
Shef Rogers
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Narrative Theory ◽  
Travel Narratives ◽  
Ascension Island ◽  
History Of ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
Narrative Techniques ◽  
Early Novel

This essay clarifies the bibliographical history of the three published accounts of the sufferings of a Dutch sailor abandoned on Ascension Island in 1726 for sodomy, but is ultimately less concerned with what actually happened than with how the story was represented in each of three versions and with what those changes might tell us about shifts in expectations of fiction readers between 1726 and 1740. It also examines how later critics have responded to the story to demonstrate that ideas about credibility are relative and socially determined. While narrative theory generally argues that “the more information we have on a narrator, the more concrete will be our sense of the quality and distinctness of his or her voice,” this case study questions that relationship, at least for the early novel, when narrative techniques and readerly practices were still being developed.

scholarly journals MUSICAL EXPRESSION: LESSONS FROM THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY?

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-72
Author(s):  
BETTINA VARWIG
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Musical Expression ◽  
Central Case ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century ◽  
A Performance

ABSTRACTThis article outlines a number of potential contributions that a consideration of early eighteenth-century conceptions of musical expressivity might make to certain present-day philosophical and psychological accounts of musical emotions and their expression. Taking as its central case study a performance by Christian Gerhaher in Peter Sellars's 2014 staging of J. S. Bach's St John Passion, the article calls for closer attention to both the historical specifics of music's expressive capacities and the corporeal dimension of performance (past and present). It argues that a more sustained engagement with these domains can productively complicate some fundamental assumptions that underpin current approaches to musical expression.

scholarly journals Secularizing a Religious Legal System: Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in Early Eighteenth Century England

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Troy L. Harris
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Court System ◽  
Theoretical Justification ◽  
Ecclesiastical Courts ◽  
Early Eighteenth Century

Abstract The early eighteenth-century English ecclesiastical courts are a case study in the secularization of a legal system. As demonstrated elsewhere, the courts were very busy. And yet the theoretical justification for their jurisdiction was very much a matter of debate throughout the period, with divine-right and voluntaristic conceptions vying for precedence. Placed in this context, the King’s Bench decision in Middleton v Crofts (1736) represented an important step in the direction of limiting the reach of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and did so on grounds that undermined divine-right justifications of the ecclesiastical court system as a whole.

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