Opera, aesthetics of

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Tanner
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Original Function ◽  
Art Form ◽  
Greek Myths ◽  
Dramatic Action

Opera, which may be defined as a dramatic action set in large part to music, is an inherently unstable art form, more so than any other. It has been characteristic of its practitioners and critics to call it periodically to order, in idioms which vary but carry much the same message: the music exists to further the drama. This has often been taken to be a matter of settling the priority of two elements: music and text. But in fact three are involved: music, text and plot (or action). Opera began very abruptly in Northern Italy at the end of the sixteenth century, partly as the result of discussions about its possibility. To begin with, familiar Greek myths were employed, set in the vernacular, with simple accompaniments so that every word could be heard. This led to pre-eminence for the singers and for spectacle. After each wave of excess – vocal prowess, dance interludes, stilted plots and texts, then once again, in the nineteenth century, empty display, and later gargantuan orchestras – there was a movement of revolt. Philosophers rarely took part in these aesthetic disputes, most of them being uninterested in music, and possibly more relevantly, being uninterested in any subject which can only be studied in historical terms. But it is fruitless to think about opera apart from its manifestations; every great operatic composer makes his own treaty between the potentially warring elements, Wagner being the most passionate propagandist for his own conception. In the twentieth century the aesthetics of opera have become pluralistic, as has, to an unprecedented degree, the form itself. The perpetual danger is that opera should degenerate into entertainment, and it is always the same message that recalls it to its original function – one which most spectators and listeners are happy to ignore: opera is a form of drama.

Maritime Archaeological Studies in India

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aniruddh S. Gaur ◽  
Kamlesh H. Vora
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
Tamil Nadu ◽  
Maritime History ◽  
Indian Coast ◽  
Indian Ocean Trade ◽  
History Of ◽  
Detailed Work

India has played a major role in Indian Ocean trade and the development of shipbuilding technology. The study of the maritime history of India commenced in the first decade of the twentieth century and was largely based on literary data. Maritime archaeological investigations have been undertaken at various places along the Indian coast, such as in Dwarka, Pindara, the Gulf of Khambhat, the Maharashtra coast, the Tamil Nadu coast, etc. Despite a long coastline and a rich maritime history, there are no proper coastal records or records of shipwrecks that are preserved, except some literary references, which suggest a large number of shipwrecks dating between the early sixteenth century and the nineteenth century. This article discusses important shipwrecks on which detailed work is in progress.

Stone Materials, Constructions Techniques and Alterations in Historic Buildings: Examples from Minas Gerais, in Brazil and from the Braga and Viseu Districts in Portugal

2013 ◽  
Vol 548 ◽  
pp. 336-347
Author(s):  
Antônio Gilberto Costa
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Granitic Rock ◽  
Minas Gerais ◽  
Historic Buildings ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Assets ◽  
Stone Materials ◽  
Made In

The use of stone materials in constructions and in the art of sculpture in Brazil, as well as the related constructions techniques employed, was strongly influenced by Portugal between the mid-sixteenth century and the early nineteenth century. One of those techniques consisted of erecting the whole constructions using stone materials, without the use of mortar, by solely juxtaposing smaller and larger stones. Some remaining buildings and descriptions dating back to the beginning of the twentieth century, involving the use of carved stone in “mineiro” – or Minas Gerais – constructions, known as minhota, or made in the fashion of Minho, bear proof to the use of that technique and, specially, to the influence this ancient Portuguese province had on the constructing style and on the way of working the stones in Minas Gerais. However, when we consider the frequency with which that technique was used, there is evidence that the use of “stone blocks” was much more common in certain regions of Portugal such as in constructions situated in the district of Braga, in the old province of Minho. Also from Portugal, from the old province of Beira Alta, there should be considered beautiful examples of constructions featuring the use of the dry stone technique which involved utilizing blocks of granitic rock as those seen in the Viseu district. In addition to the description of the stone materials utilized in these buildings, both Brazilian and Portuguese, and in the production of several sculptural elements associated with some of these architectural sets, evidence is provided which shows the occurrence of very similar deterioration processes which are responsible for the imprinting of certain features into these cultural assets, identified by the loss of materials and formation of crusts due to biological colonizations.

scholarly journals ‘Fifty pounds will buy me a pair of horses for my carriage’: the history of permissive subjects in English

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 719-744
Author(s):  
GEA DRESCHLER
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Initial Position ◽  
Verb Second ◽  
History Of ◽  
Functional Motivations

This article investigates the history of so-called permissive subjects in English, for example The tent sleeps four: inanimate, non-agentive subjects used with verbs that normally take animate, agentive subjects. Although permissive subjects are assumed in the literature to be innovations, there is little information available on their use and frequency. Using historical corpora, I provide an account of the history of permissive subjects with five verbs – see, buy, seat, sleep and sell. The results show that permissive subjects with see and buy are already found in the sixteenth century, while those with seat and sell occur from the nineteenth century onwards, and those with sleep first occur in the twentieth century. The five types also differ in other respects, with genre and functional motivations playing an important role. Crucially, there is an increase in the overall use of these permissive subjects, which follows the increase in subject-initial clauses and a more marked use of the presubject position as described by Los & Dreschler (2012), supporting their proposal that several subject-creating strategies – passives, middles and permissive subjects – became more frequent in English due to changes in the pragmatic character of the clause-initial position, in turn caused by the loss of verb second.

Dante and the Performing Arts

2021 ◽  
pp. 601-618
Author(s):  
Rossend Arqués Corominas
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Performing Arts ◽  
Turn Of The Century ◽  
Dance Music ◽  
Vita Nuova

This chapter explores the reception of Dante in the performing arts, especially the Commedia. The first part outlines public readings of Dante, from Boccaccio to the present day (Benigni, Bene, etc.) via fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Florence. It also revisits Gustavo Modena and other nineteenth-century patriotic actors. The second part offers a chronology of the presence of Dante’s work in the theatrical field in three periods: the nineteenth century with Francesca da Rimini and some other characters from the Commedia who occupy a prominent place in the theatre scene and European opera—especially in works by Pellico and D’Annunzio; the turn of the century, when the pre-Raphaelite and symbolist Beatrice from Vita nuova gains more prominence; and the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first, with a focus on dance, music, and theatre.

Decline or Survival? Iron Production in West Africa from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Centuries

1982 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 503-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. M. Pole
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Iron Production ◽  
Production Constraints ◽  
Iron Smelting ◽  
Local Sources ◽  
Non Local

In the sixteenth century most iron used in west Africa was produced within the region. Extra demand may have been met from the newly established European factors on the coast. By the end of the nineteenth century, in contrast, it was the residue in demand that was satisfied from local sources, the main bulk of iron being imported via the coast and transported inland. For the larger part of this 400-year period imported iron was cheaper than locally-produced iron. What was remarkable, then, was not that iron smelting eventually died out, but that it survived for so long and could be studied in detail in the second half of the twentieth century.It is argued that, although the decline can be related to production constraints, such as the availability of charcoal, influences originating from the rest of the community can be seen to have prolonged the survival of local iron. The organization of labour of both the iron-smelting and blacksmithing processes, together with the way in which iron was marketed, are central to the analysis. In addition, consumption factors are of the utmost importance. Apart from the prejudice against innovation, the fact that imported iron was plainly not as suitable as local iron for the purposes to which it was put, weakened its impact. Also the ritual attitude to local iron has to be taken into consideration. The present universality of non-local sources has resulted in a change in the regard paid to the metal, but it is argued that the position of the smith is unlikely to alter significantly, since it is more related to his crucial role as supplier of tools for other essential activities such as farming, than to the production of iron itself.

Letter Writing Among Poets

2015 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Letter Writing ◽  
Art Form

This is the first book to look at poets’ letters as an art form. Fifteen enlightening chapters by leading international biographers, critics and poets examine letter writing among poets in the last 200 years. Poets discussed include Coleridge, Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley in the nineteenth century and Eliot, Yeats, Bishop and Larkin in the twentieth. Divided into three sections—Contexts and Issues, Romantic and Victorian Letter Writing and Twentieth-Century Letter Writing—the volume demonstrates that real letters still have an allure that virtual post struggles to replicate.

The Volta River Salt Trade: the Survival of an Indigenous Industry

1981 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. B. Sutton
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Commercial Production ◽  
Market Forces ◽  
Traditional Methods ◽  
Motor Transport ◽  
Local Sources ◽  
Salt Trade

Salt has been produced in Ghana since at least the sixteenth century at many coastal sites. By the nineteenth century commercial production was concentrated in the lagoons east of Accra, and especially at Songor Lagoon just west of Ada. Here the Ada Manche and the priesthood controlled production. Much salt consumed in Asante and further north came from Accra, Ningo and Songor, and an increasing proportion went up the Volta River by canoe. The share of salt trade in the hands of the Ada traders is reflected in their virtual monopoly of the river traffic and their settlement in trading communities along the river. The British attempted to regulate and tax the trade, but market forces were more important in determining price. Salt from Ada was generally preferred to imported salt and to salt from other local sources, but the alternative of imported salt helped regulate the local prices. The importance of Daboya as a source of salt seems to have been somewhat exaggerated. Salt from Ada continued to predominate in much of Ghana in the twentieth century, but the river traffic was gradually replaced by motor transport, and the hold of the Adas on the distributive network broken. Salt continued to be produced by traditional methods at Songor until quite recently. It is still produced by traditional means for a fairly wide sale at Keta Lagoon, east of the Volta.

The ‘Taste for Tudors’ since 1940

1960 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 167-183
Author(s):  
Lacey Baldwin Smith
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
The Past ◽  
Military Security ◽  
The Welfare State

Professor F. J. Fisher wrote in 1940 that the twentieth century has been ‘busily recreating the sixteenth century in its own image’. Historical re-evaluation is always in part narcissistic. Two world wars have left their scars on our view of history and, if nothing else, have given us insights into the Tudor age which, like our own, faced ideological wars of survival. The quest for economic and military security and the dream of the welfare state have led the twentieth century to forsake not only the ethical and institutional standards of the nineteenth century but also to deny its interpretation of history. The ancient shibboleths, the familiar landmarks of Tudor history, and the comfortable generalizations about despotism, mercantilism, and ‘new monarchy’ are all being swept aside by a generation of historians who claim greater understanding of the past.

The Zoroastrian fire temple in the ex-Portuguese colony of Diu, India

2003 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Mehrdad Shokoohy
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Indian Ocean ◽  
The Other ◽  
South Coast ◽  
The South ◽  
The Indian Ocean ◽  
The Town

AbstractThe ex-Portuguese town of Diu on the island with the same name off the south coast of Saurashtra, Gujarat, is one of the best-preserved and yet least-studied Portuguese colonial towns. Diu was the last of the Portuguese strongholds in India, the control of which was finally achieved in 1539 after many years of futile struggle and frustrating negotiations with the sultanate of Gujarat. During the late sixteenth and seventeenth century Diu remained a main staging post for Portuguese trade in the Indian Ocean, but with the appearance of the Dutch, and later the French and British, on the scene the island gradually lost its strategic importance. The town was subjected to little renovation during the nineteenth century while in the twentieth century Diu was no more than an isolated Portuguese outpost with meagre trade until it was taken over by India in 1961. As a result, unlike the other former Portuguese colonies in India – Daman and Goa – Diu has preserved most of its original characteristics: a Portuguese colonial town plan, a sixteenth-century fort and a number of old churches, as well as many of the eighteenth and nineteenth-century houses.

The Portuguese on the Zambezi: An Historical Interpretation of the Prazo System

1969 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. D. D. Newitt
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Central Africa ◽  
Local Administration ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
Administrative Policy ◽  
African Slaves ◽  
Eighteenth And Nineteenth Centuries

From the sixteenth century until the coming of the Salazar regime, Portuguese control in the Zambezi basin rested on the prazos da coroa—grants of crown land. Portuguese acquisition of land and jurisdiction began with the establishment of the trading fairs in Mashonaland in the second half of the sixteenth century. Private titles first became common in the seventeenth century, when individual conquistadores, who had obtained concessions from chiefs in return for their help in local wars, sought official titles for their land from the Portuguese crown. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the Crown tried to modify the terms of these grants and alter the character of the institution of the prazos. The prazo-holders successfully resisted these encroachments because their power rested on their followings of African slaves and clients, and on their control of local administration and their family alliances. In the nineteenth century their dependence on their African followings, coupled with increasing inter-marriage, greatly accentuated the African characteristics of the prazos. The most important of the prazo holders became the chiefs of newly emerging African peoples, and adopted the customs and beliefs associated with chieftainship. At the same time the disordered state of the Zambezi following the Ngoni invasions and the growth of the slave-trade eliminated the weaker families and concentrated power effectively in the hands of four major family groupings. The wars waged by the Portuguese government against these families lasted from the 1840s till teh end of the century. In spite of many victories, the internal feuds among the prazo families and the establishment of British administration in Central Africa brought about the end of their dominance. The prazos themselves survived into the twentieth century as units of fiscal and administrative policy.

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