‘The dead man touched me from the past’:1 Tennyson’s In Memoriam and Wordsworth

2019 ◽  
pp. 80-120
Author(s):  
Jayne Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The Past ◽  
In Memoriam ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Public Voice ◽  
Dead Man ◽  
Century Science

This chapter examines Tennyson’s In Memoriam (1850). Tennyson was open about the difficulties he sustained in writing the poem, and this chapter argues that the Wordsworthian borrowings in the poem help the later poet to work toward finding a form of consolation, however tenuous this consolation subsequently proves to be, and therefore to make his accommodations with his faith, with the claims of nineteenth-century science and religion, but also with the loss of Arthur Henry Hallam, the direct subject of the poem. It also examines how the Wordsworthian language in In Memoriam helps Tennyson both to stabilise his ‘public’ voice and to develop the pastoral elements of elegy. The borrowings from Wordsworth form a chamber of echoes that Tennyson harnesses, reworks, reconfigures, replays in a different context and in a different time. At times the later poet is unable fully to transfigure and rework Wordsworth’s language, but is constrained, limited, inhibited by it, and these effects make themselves manifest in the poem too.

Late Afternoon

2020 ◽  
pp. 83-116
Author(s):  
Tony Perman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Musical Life ◽  
Late Afternoon ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Dead

The chapter introduces the madzviti spirits of nineteenth-century Gaza Nguni warriors. Emphasizing the reality of semiotic objects, I explore the histories behind the madzviti’s emergence and the purposes for which the living awaken them. Rituals such as this rely on and reinforce habits that form the core conventions of spiritual and musical life. Their meaning depends on the histories, encounters, expectations, and desires that shape the spirits’ emergence and are shaped by their presence. Madzviti spirits lived as soldiers when the Gaza State ruled Ndau territories. This history is central to the transformation of the madzviti from soldier to spirit, from living to dead. Musicking facilitates the relationships between the living and the dead as well as the present with the past.

The Nature of Time

2020 ◽  
pp. 51-80
Author(s):  
Samuel Morris Brown
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Latter Day Saints ◽  
Animal Sacrifice ◽  
Joseph Smith ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nature Of Time ◽  
The Dead

The wild time of the Bible’s primeval history became progressively less accessible across the nineteenth century. Many philosophers and cultural agents intended time to be flat, linear, and homogeneous. Joseph Smith disagreed, strenuously. He encouraged his followers to live a different form of time, inhabiting the past and present simultaneously, even as he was coy about his relationship to traditional Christian understandings of eternity. Smith’s effort to bind time into a sacred simultaneity famously included attempts to live anciently biblical lives, which included polygamy and apparently never-realized plans for animal sacrifice. These efforts at sacred simultaneity were intended to create and strengthen relationships between the living and the dead and to free Latter-day Saints from the prison of flat time.

Science and Religion

2020 ◽  
pp. 386-408
Author(s):  
Bennett Zon
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Alternative Hypothesis ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Religious Discourse ◽  
Introductory Section ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Century Science

While nineteenth-century science and religion are commonly portrayed as being at war, this chapter uses musical contexts to test an alternative hypothesis: that science and religion were in fact compatible. It does that by tracking Anglo-European ideological changes in scientific and religious discourse, and explaining how music absorbed and reflected those changes across intellectually reciprocal environments. An introductory section outlines key scientific and religious changes from pre- and post-Darwinian evolutionary formulations to nineteenth-century theologies of divine emotion. Three further sections investigate the relationship of science and religion to the musical body, mind, and soul, emphasizing concepts of sensation and the voice; consciousness and feeling; and mystery and emotion.

Barrows

Antiquity ◽  
1927 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 419-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
O. G. S. Crawford
Keyword(s):  
Raw Material ◽  
The Past ◽  
Burial Customs ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Dead Man

The fascination of Archaeology consists in reconstructing the life of the past, but by a curious paradox we obtain most of our raw material from the graves of the dead. We profit by the superstition which ordained that the dead man should be supplied with tools and weapons, and the dead woman with ornaments, to accompany them to the land of shadows. We profit also by the conservative instinct which regulated the construction of the tomb and the accompanying ritual. Nothing changes so slowly as burial-customs, even in these radical times. In all essentials the modern funeral procession remains Victorian in its gloomy respectability, its tawdry finery, and its obsolete methods of transport.The origin of barrow-making being unknown, one is free to speculate without the risk of being upset by evidence. The earliest deliberate burials occurred in the Mousterian period, in caves; and although connecting links are not numerous, one cannot help feeling that the natural cave must have been the ancestor of the megalithic passage-grave. In all essentials the cave and the passage-grave are the same; the 'points' so to speak, of a habitation cave are (I) the ground in front of the mouth, ( 2 ) the mouth, and (3) the dark, little used interior. Of these the mouth was the most important, and was often walled off; and it is natural to suppose that the darker recesses were used for sleeping in at night. These three features correspond fairly well with the typical arrangement of a passage-grave ; and if the houses of the dead were modelled upon those of the living, as is usually supposed, there may be some truth in this suggested evolution ; but there are many difficulties. However this may be, megalithic burial-places were very often—and always in our country—covered with mounds of earth or, in stony country, cairns of stone : they were in fact the first barrows ; so we must consider them. The subject is a very thorny one, and in order to avoid being drawn into argument, I shall avoid problems and keep to a description of facts. The title of this paper suggests that geographical and ethnographical deductions may for once be given second place.

Siren canora: the mermaid and the mythical in late nineteenth-century science

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. BRINK-ROBY
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
British Association ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Darwinian Theory ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Century Science

This paper argues that, for a number of naturalists and lay commentators in the second half of the nineteenth century, evolutionary – especially Darwinian – theory gave new authority to mythical creatures. These writers drew on specific elements of evolutionary theory to assert the existence of mermaids, dragons and other fabulous beasts. But mythological creatures also performed a second, often contrapositive, argumentative function; commentators who rejected evolution regularly did so by dismissing these creatures. Such critics agreed that Darwin's theory legitimized the mythological animal, but they employed this legitimization to undermine the theory itself. The mermaid, in particular, was a focus of attention in this mytho-evolutionary debate, which ranged from the pages of Punch to the lecture halls of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Crossing social boundaries and taking advantage of a range of venues, this debate arose in response to the indeterminate challenge of evolutionary theory. In its discussions of mermaids and dragons, centaurs and satyrs, this discourse helped define that challenge, construing and constructing the meanings and implications of evolutionary theory in the decades following Darwin's publication.

Remembering the Past in Nineteenth-Century Scotland

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
James J. Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
National Identity ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Collective Memories ◽  
The Past ◽  
Prevailing View ◽  
The Way

At a time when the Union between Scotland and England is once again under the spotlight, Remembering the Past in Nineteenth-Century Scotland examines the way in which Scotland’s national heroes were once remembered as champions of both Scottish and British patriotism. Whereas 19th-century Scotland is popularly depicted as a mire of sentimental Jacobitism and kow-towing unionism, this book shows how Scotland’s national heroes were once the embodiment of a consistent, expressive and robust view of Scottish nationality. Whether celebrating the legacy of William Wallace and Robert Bruce, the reformer John Knox, the Covenanters, 19th-century Scots rooted their national heroes in a Presbyterian and unionist view of Scotland’s past. Examined through the prism of commemoration, this book uncovers collective memories of Scotland’s past entirely opposed to 21st-century assumptions of medieval proto-nationalism and Calvinist misery. Detailed studies of 19th-century commemoration of Scotland’s national heroes Uncovers an all but forgotten interpretation of these ‘great Scots’ Shines a new light on the mindset of nineteenth-century Scottish national identity as being comfortably Scottish and British Overturns the prevailing view of Victorian Scottishness as parochial, sentimental tartanry

Ghost, Broken Narratives and the Art of Dying

2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 15-22
Author(s):  
Lars Rømer
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The World ◽  
Art Of Dying ◽  
The Dead

This article investigates how experiences of ghosts can be seen as a series of broken narratives. By using cases from contemporary as well 19th century Denmark I will argue that ghosts enter the world of the living as sensations that question both common sense understanding and problematize the unfinished death. Although ghosts have been in opposition to both science and religion in Denmark at least since the reformation I will exemplify how people deal with the broken narrative of ghosts in ways that incorporate and mimic techniques of both the scientist and the priest. Ghosts, thus, initiate a dialogue between the dead and the living concerning the art of dying that will enable both to move on.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nurit Yaari
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eastern Europe ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Jewish Culture ◽  
The Past ◽  
Future State ◽  
History Of ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
State Of Israel

This chapter examines the lack of continuous tradition of the art of the theatre in the history of Jewish culture. Theatre as art and institution was forbidden for Jews during most of their history, and although there were plays written in different times and places during the past centuries, no tradition of theatre evolved in Jewish culture until the middle of the nineteenth century. In view of this absence, the author discusses the genesis of Jewish theatre in Eastern Europe and in Eretz-Yisrael (The Land of Israel) since the late nineteenth century, encouraged by the Jewish Enlightenment movement, the emergence of Jewish nationalism, and the rebirth of Hebrew as a language of everyday life. Finally, the chapter traces the development of parallel strands of theatre that preceded the Israeli theatre and shadowed the emergence of the political infrastructure of the future State of Israel.

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