Turnings: Motion and Emotion in the Labyrinths of Early Modern Amsterdam

2021 ◽  
pp. 35-61
Author(s):  
Angela Vanhaelen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Spiritual Transformation ◽  
Strong Connection

Amsterdam’s Doolhoven, or labyrinths, constituted recreational spaces that also forged a strong connection between theatricality and a secular conversional experience by drawing on the idea of the labyrinth as an allegory for progression toward spiritual transformation. The chapter explores both the performative and philosophical components of these early modern labyrinths and the deeper meaning of their many ludic tricks.

Staging Sincerity in Renaissance Italy and Early Modern China; or, Why Real Lovers Quarrel

Poetics Today ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 281-299
Author(s):  
Casey Schoenberger
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Musical Theater ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
Modern China ◽  
Physical Sciences ◽  
Strong Connection ◽  
Renaissance Italy ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Brain

The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in China and the West saw a wave of skeptical approaches to metaphysics, ethics, and the physical sciences, including a related interest in “playing devil’s advocate” for seemingly weak propositions. This article analyzes two works of musical theater from these geographically remote traditions to argue that use of historically problematic romances to explore the relationship of ethics, emotion, and reason resulted in novel depictions of attachment emotions as neither purely selfless “gut reactions” nor calculating facades. Scenes depicting lovers’ quarrels and morally flawed characters may paradoxically strike audiences as more authentically romantic because they dramatize an aspect of attachment emotions’ functioning recently elucidated by cognitive science, namely, that of “body budgeting” (allocation of energy resources by the brain). Monteverdi and Busenello’s Coronation of Poppaea and Hóng Shēng’s Palace of Lasting Life use contrastive poetic and musical styles to dramatize the debate-like quality inherent in such negotiations, further revealing a strong connection between the affective “ingredients” that make up socially mediated emotion states and the mechanisms by which music and prosody affect them.

Heartfelt Musicking

2018 ◽  
Vol 143 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-62
Author(s):  
Bettina Varwig
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Johann Sebastian Bach ◽  
Spiritual Transformation ◽  
Music Making

This essay proposes a somatic archaeology of German Lutheran music making around 1700. Focusing on a single cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach, it sets out to reconstruct the capacities of early modern body-souls for musical reverberation, affective contagion, and spiritual transformation.

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