Troping Time: Refrain Interpolation in Sacred Latin Song, ca. 1140–1853

2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-156
Author(s):  
Mary Channen Caldwell

Abstract This article explores a practice in evidence across Europe from the twelfth to the nineteenth century involving the singing of a brief refrain within sacred Latin songs and hymns. Tracing the circulation of the two-part refrain “Fulget dies … Fulget dies ista” across multiple centuries, in both song-form tropes of the office versicle Benedicamus Domino and as a trope interpolated into hymns, I chart its unique movement between genres and in and out of written record. Examining the unusual origins, transmission, and function of the refrain, I begin with its emergence in twelfth-century manuscripts and conclude with its unnotated appearance in nineteenth-century printed Catholic songbooks. I argue that the refrain’s long-standing appeal can be located in its function as a poetic and liturgical trope of time itself. While tropes often enhance the “hic et nunc” (here and now) of the liturgy, the “Fulget dies” refrain gained additional temporal significance through its intimate link to songs of the Christmas season. The “shining day” imagery introduced by the refrain offered a tangible way of marking seasonal time in devotional rites, poetically indexing the light-based symbolism of Christmas, the winter solstice, and the New Year. The inherently temporal meaning of the refrain lent it flexibility as a trope, enabling its movement across genres and liturgies. Integrated into sacred Latin songs, the “Fulget dies” refrain functioned as a pithy musical and poetic commentary on liturgical, calendrical, and seasonal temporalities—in other words, as a trope of time in sacred song.

1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Tyson

J. Henry Rushton was the preeminent American builder of canoes and small pleasure boats in the late nineteenth-century. Beginning in the mid 1890s, Rushton personally maintained books of cost records and cost finding rules for his boat-building operations. In conjunction with the company's product catalogs and Rushton's personal letters, these books reveal the nature and function of cost keeping for this enterprise. They also suggest that pressures from increased competition and an economic depression may have stimulated Rushton to undertake detailed costing procedures.


Author(s):  
Donald R. Kelley

Centuries of Roman jurisprudence were assembled in the great Byzantine collection, the Digest, by Tribonian and the other editors. Roman law became more formal when during the Renaissance of the twelfth century it came to be taught in the first universities, starting with Bologna and the teaching of Irnerius. The main channels of expansion were through the Glossators and post-Glossators, who commented on the main texts and on later legislation by the Holy Roman Emperors, which included “feudal law,” but also by notaries and other proto-lawyers. Christian doctrine also became part of the “Roman” tradition, and canon and civil law were taught together in the universities as “civil science.” According to the ancient Roman jurist Gaius, “all the law which we use pertains either to persons or to things or to actions,” three categories that exhaust the external human condition—personality, reality, and action. In the nineteenth century, the study of Roman law lost its ideological power and became part of philology and history, at least so concludes James Whitman.


Author(s):  
Fernando Vidal ◽  
Francisco Ortega

The first chapter proposes to trace the distant roots of the cerebral subject to the late seventeenth century, and particularly to debates about the seat of the soul, the corpuscularian theory of matter, and John Locke’s philosophy of personal identity. In the wake of Locke, eighteenth century authors began to assert that the brain is the only part of the body we need to be ourselves. In the nineteenth century, this form of deterministic essentialism contributed to motivate research into brain structure and function, and in turn confirmed the brain-personhood nexus. Since then, from phrenology to functional neuroimaging, neuroscientific knowledge and representations have constituted a powerful support for prescriptive outlooks on the individual and society. “Neuroascesis,” as we call the business that sells programs of cerebral self-discipline, is a case in point, which this chapter also examines. It appeals to the brain and neuroscience as bases for its self-help recipes to enhance memory and reasoning, fight depression, anxiety and compulsions, improve sexual performance, achieve happiness, and even establish a direct contact with God. Yet underneath the neuro surface lie beliefs and even concrete instructions that can be traced to nineteenth-century hygiene manuals.


Author(s):  
Gavin Miller

For the purposes of this book, science fiction is defined broadly in the terms advanced by Darko Suvin, with a focus on the genre from the late nineteenth century onwards. Psychology is conceived as the modern Western discipline, running from the origins of experimental psychology in the late nineteenth century to the ascendance of neuroscience as a disciplinary rival in the late twentieth century. Five different functions for psychological discourses in science fiction are proposed. The didactic-futurological function educates the non-specialist through extrapolation of psychological technologies, teaching within the context of futurological forecasting. The utopian function anchors in historical possibility the imagining of a currently non-existent society, whether utopian or dystopian. The cognitive-estranging function defamiliarizes and denaturalizes social reality by extrapolating current social tendencies and/or construct unsettling fictional analogues of the reader’s world. The metafictional function self-consciously thematizes within narrative fiction the psychological origins, nature, and function of science fiction as a genre. The reflexive function addresses the construction of individuals and groups who have reflexively adopted the ‘truth’ of psychological knowledge.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Elke D’hoker ◽  
Chris Mourant

This chapter provides an overview of the methodological and historical frames that inform the book’s analysis of the manifold interactions between the short story and British magazine culture, from 1880 to 1950. It discusses the material turn in short fiction studies which has led to a better understanding of the impact of publication contexts on the production, reception and development of the short story. This holds true in particular for the role magazines played in the emergence of the modern short story as a specific and successful literary form in the final decades of the nineteenth century. The chapter also presents an overview of recent developments in periodical studies, providing useful methodological tools for analysing the status, presentation and function of a particular genre within the heterogeneous, dialogic and time-bound format of the periodical.


Author(s):  
David Kopp

This article examines the role of key and function as a component of Riemann's relational harmonic system. It is argued in this article that while the neo-Riemannian abstraction of Riemann's Harmonieschritte offer certain insights into the nature of chromatic relations in the nineteenth-century music, it has also resulted in a view of harmonic relations uncomfortably divorced and separated from the tonal and functional contexts in which they were conceived. In addition to examining the role of key and function as component of Riemann's relational harmonic system, and chromaticism, the article also suggests how neo-Riemannian analysis can benefit by reconnecting Riemannian harmonic relations to the functional tonal contexts in which they arose, illustrating the recovered and renewed nineteenth-century perspective with analyses of music by Beethoven, Schubert, and Wolf.


2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 465-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
Warwick Funnell ◽  
Andrew Holden ◽  
David Oldroyd

Purpose – This paper examines the nature and function of cost accounting at the Newcastle Infirmary, a large voluntary provincial hospital, established in 1751. In particular, the paper adds to the literature on accounting within early voluntary hospitals by identifying the relative contributions of the costing system to planning and controlling the operations, assisting decision making and holding managers accountable for their performance. Design/methodology/approach – The paper relies primarily on original documents preserved in the archives of the Newcastle Infirmary. Findings – Although evidence was found of quite sophisticated costing systems, the findings suggest that the majority of the information was produced ex post by the hospital management to demonstrate good stewardship and to engender financial support. Research limitations/implications – More cases are needed of other hospitals to ascertain how typical the Newcastle Infirmary was of the voluntary hospital sector in the nineteenth century. Originality/value – Although there are other studies of accounting within British voluntary hospitals, and studies of the use of accounting to drive decision making in profit-making organisations during the nineteenth century, none have investigated the use of accounting as a decision-making tool in a voluntary hospital.


2013 ◽  
Vol 82 (2) ◽  
pp. 368-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felicity Jensz ◽  
Hanna Acke

At the 1860 conference on Protestant missions held in Liverpool, a session was dedicated to the use of the reported 200,000 monthly missionary periodicals produced by various societies for encouraging the home support of missionary work. The 125 delegates from more than twenty-five Protestant missionary societies both in Britain and abroad had divergent opinions on the prospective contents and audiences for missionary periodicals. One thing that they did agree upon, however, was their necessity. The Reverend Thomas Green from the Church Missionary Society noted that missionary periodicals provided a means of “influencing” the minds of readers in order to excite the missionary spirit among the home community. The high circulation of missionary periodicals was, according to the Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society, Reverend Frederick Trestrail, an indication that they provided a source of information that was received willingly and consumed by the masses.


1988 ◽  
Vol 83 ◽  
pp. 183-207 ◽  
Author(s):  
I.D. Jenkins ◽  
A.P. Middleton

Since the early nineteenth century, scholars have wondered whether certain accretions on the surface of the Parthenon sculptures, ranging in colour from yellow to brown, may represent evidence of ancient paint. The tendency has been to reject this notion, and today most classical archaeologists would accept the suggestion that this apparent staining of the marble is caused by the oxidation of iron particles coming from within the marble itself. While not rejecting this as the probable explanation for some of the brown areas, this article will argue that others can be understood only in terms of an artificially applied surface. Possible explanations as to the date and function of this material will be discussed in the light of both archaeological observation and scientific analysis. Firstly, however, a summary will be given of the important contributions made to our understanding of this problem by earlier commentators.


1998 ◽  
Vol 78 ◽  
pp. 111-176
Author(s):  
J. Philip McAleer

Since the early eighteenth century, on the basis of no particular evidence, the tower standing uncomfortably close to the north choir aisle at Rochester has been attributed to Bishop Gundulf, the builder of the first Romanesque cathedral church begun c.1080. Recently, it has been suggested that the tower dates to the mid-twelfth century and was erected as a bell tower. This paper assembles the documented history of the tower, speculates about its original form, and presents comparative material. Early post-Conquest towers of a possible defensive function and the few known examples of free-standing bell towers in twelfth-century England are considered in an attempt to establish a date and function for the tower. On the basis of this evidence, it may be suggested that an early post-Conquest – and pre-Gundulf – date is more likely than one in the mid-twelfth century, and that it was more probably erected for defensive purposes rather than as a bell tower.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document