Aspects Of Myth Research Articles

Dla kogo pracuje dziś Król Artur? Użycia i nadużycia mitu arturiańskiego

Who does King Arthur work for today? Uses and abuses of the Arthurian myth Analyzing the phenomenon of one of the most popular European myths - the Arthurian myth - the author attempts to answer the question of the difference between using and abusing myths. An insight into the sources of Arthurian tradition proves that even the oldest and most important literary incar- nations of the myth were used by their authors as a means of speaking about contemporary political and sociological issues. However, the Arthurian films (which are the main subject of this research) reinforce the thesis about a distinctive feature of a myth itself to be immensely flexible and able to absorb various cultural content. The study examines in detail the film King Arthur (2004, dir. Antoine Fuqua). Its creators seem to come very close to the border between use and abuse of a myth by denying the mythical aspect of the Arthurian legends

An Analysis of the mythical aspects of the Ramayana in Malaysian Tamil New Verses

Abstract The Tamil Literature of Malaysia has an l30 years of history. lt originated with the Conventional poems like Vannai Anthathi, Vannai Nagar Unchal, Singai Nagar Antathi and Chitira Kavi written by Sadhasiva Pandithar in 1887. After the conventional poetry, Short stories, Novels and Drama came into being in Malaysian Tamil Literature. Since 1964, the Tamil new verse in Malaysian Tamil Literature started its account, with the poet C. Kamalanathan who wrote the first new verse in Tamil. He chose the traditional, mythical details in the Ramayana, the Mahabharatha and the Cilapathikaram to write the new verse. This paper’s objective is to look into such details present in the Malaysian Tamil new verse. Key words: Conventional references, Ramayana, Malaysian Tamil new verse, Tamil Literature, mythical aspects. ஆயவுசசுருககம இனறு மேறகொளளபபடும இலககிய ஆராயசசிகளுககு அடிபபடையாக அமைவது இலககியக கோடபாடாகும. தேரநதெடுககபபடும இலககியததின மூலமாக பலவேறு தகவலகளை ஆராய முடிநதாலும, ஒரு இலககியததை குறிபபிடட கோணததில அலசி ஆராயவதறகு தேரநதெடுககபபடும அநத இலககியக கோடபாடு வழிவகுககும. அவவகையில அமையபபடட ஓர இலககியக கோடபாடே, ஒருஙகிணைபபடட நானகுச சிநதனைகள எனபதாகும. அககோடபாடு முகமாட யூசோப பின ஹசான அவரகளால அறிமுகம செயயபபடடுளளது. அவவகையில இவவாராயசசிக கடடுரையானது, ஒருஙகிணைபபடட நானகுச சிநதனைகள எனற இநத இலககியக கோடபாடடில அமைநதுளள நானகுச சிநதனைகள பறறிய விளககததையும, இககோடபாடு உருவான வரலாறறையும, இககோடபாடு எபபடி இலககிய ஆராயசசிககு பயனபடுததலாம எனற பலவேறு தகவலகளை விளகக முறபடுகினறது. இவவாராயசசிக கடடுரையின வாயிலாக இதுவரை மலாய இலககிய ஆராயசசி உலகில பயனபடுததபடடு வநத இநத ஒருஙகிணைபபடட நானகுச சிநதனைகள இலககியக கோடபாடு, தமிழிலககிய ஆராயசசியாளரகளுககு ஒரு வழிககாடடலாக அமைய வழிவகுககும. குறிபபுச சொறகள: இலககியக கோடபாடு, ஒருஙகிணைபபடட நானகுச சிநதனைகள, ஆனமகச சிநதனை, அறிவாறறல சிநதனை, அறிவியல சிநதனை, புததாககச சிநதனை

Illusions of immediacy: rediscovering Hall’s early work on media

In this short article, I analyse Hall’s neglected early work on media and its account of how ideology is reproduced through the everyday workings of media institutions. I trace the importance of that work through later work on the mythical aspects of media institutions (Couldry) and more recent work on the culture of connectivity (Van Dijck) and its appropriation of the social in the form of social media platforms.

Algunas notas sobre la figura de Argantonio y sus elementos míticos

Several elements of the story narrated by Herodotus (I, 163) about Arganthonius, King of Tartessos, raise questions on the historical reality of this character: first, the mythical aspects of his figure, since he can be considered both a realization of the picture of the friendly king who welcomes travelers and an embodiment of the idea of a far-off and mysterious source of wealth; second, the chronology of his reign and his life, in which a mythical period of Mesopotamian origin was used; third, the history itself of his relationships with the Phocaean sailors, in which a narrative clich. was employed, and finally the likely origin of his own name, maybe taken perhaps by Charon of Lampsacus from a Bithynian mythological cycle.

Kääntämisen ja käännöstieteen myyttinen ulottuvuus

In this article, translation is approached as a reflection of translational, translatorial, and translation-theoretical myths in their different manifestations with varying truth value. Drawing on insights from the philosophy of science and semiotics, the mythical aspect of translating and translations is first discussed with respect to the role of myths in science and research and to the nature of translation-theoretical knowledge. The author then focuses on the following questions: is translating a case of action that conveys the general or the particular; is “myth” a type of speech even in Translation Studies and a building block in the cosmology of translation; what is the status of dichotomies in translating and translation strategies, in translation studies, and in the work of translation theorists; and finally, what makes a translation-theoretical myth a living myth.

Harley‑Davidson on Polish Roads: the Mythical Aspects of Automotive Fascination

Harley‑Davidson is one of the most recognizable brands of automotive products. The brand is saturated with mythical meanings which include defiance, rebellion, adventure and the desire for limitless freedom. Harley‑Davidson is also a synonym of America – the motorcycle was created to make a “trip of a lifetime or a groundbreaking journey of purification,” and open American spaces are the necessary condition for fulfilling this myth. In Poland, the myth of Harley‑Davidson is also carefully cherished by enthusiasts, for whom Harley‑Davidson is much more than just a motorcycle. This text is an attempt to analyze the functioning of the Harley myth in Poland. Some texts of Polish culture using the Harley‑Davidson will be discussed as well as forms of practical implementation of Harley‑Davidson passion (H‑D clubs, rallies, etc.).

Access to the luxury brand myth in pop-up stores: A netnographic and semiotic analysis

Using semiotic analysis and a netnographic approach, this study examines the motivations of luxury buyers toward pop-up stores in France. It reveals their motivations in relation to this new kind of retailing in the luxury sector, and the advantages of new technologies for meeting the growing demands of a clientele eager for new purchase experiences. We show that pop-up luxury stores add new features to the traditional luxury sector: informality, friendliness, ludicity and accessibility in the context of shared emotions. The key results from this study reveal that the commercial activities of pop-up stores complement those of their luxury parent Houses, in that they contribute emotionality and playfulness, while at the same nourishing the brand's mythical aspect.

Reflexões sobre a memória biográfica no meio audiovisual contemporâneo

The biographical discourse follows a traditional positivist model, focused on relations of cause and effect, and composes a chronological logic to present a life story. In the last decades, scholars have questioned this crystallized form and have offered new possibilities for the writing of the biographies. The audiovisual product, object of interest of this work, despite certain advantages over paper model, still produces screenplays in which the slices of life of an individual are an ordered succession of events in time. The purpose of this article is therefore reflect on how memory is present in the biographical films and what kind of contemporary modifications have been introduced into the trivial model so as to remove the mythical aspect that involves the biographees.

Eat or Be Eaten. The City of Macunaíma

Macunaíma, the trickster-hero from old Amerindian legends, was in the 1960s an icon of the Brazilian Cinema Novo – a new wave film movement that was a response by artists to class and racial disparities. Joaquim Pedro de Andrade, the director of Macunaíma (1969), moves the eponymous hero out of his jungle and puts him into the modern, mechanized and restless big city. Not only are social problems strongly emphasized in the film – equally important is here the aspect of myth itself. Macunaíma enters the new world as a real old-time god who sees the city as his opponent. During his battle – full of trickery and plotting – it emerges that the difference between the Amazonian jungle and the concrete jungle are barely visible.

Tite-Live, historien du mythe dans le livre I

In order to explain the traditional elements concerning original Roma, Livy had been faced to legendary material which is more a matter for Poetry than for History... at least for us. As far as ancient Historians are concerned, indeed, several aspects of Myth are not incompatible with historical narration. According to them, a less important distinction is made between what is true and what it is imaginary than between what is likely and what is unlikely. For Livy, a narration is believable provided that it’s not unlikely to philosophical, religious and political extents. Where we perceive in his work skepticism or distanciation, we have to consider only, most of the time, that Livy had applied to royal Roma’s traditions his own believability’s criterions.

Wood: A History by Joachim Radkau (review)

Reviewed by: Wood: A History by Joachim Radkau Sybil Jack Radkau, Joachim, Wood: A History, trans. Patrick Camiller, Cambridge, Polity, 2011; pp. 352; 66 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US$30.00, £25.00; ISBN 9780745646886. This undistinguished translation of Joachim Radkau’s 2007 book makes available to non-German readers an important contribution to the history of the forest. Radkau has been the leading forest historian in Germany for a generation and his work has significantly influenced German ideas about ecology and the environment. It is not a book for the beginner as it assumes an understanding of the way woodlands develop and are maintained in different climate and soil conditions. The translation should persuade forest historians from other traditions to reconsider some of their assumptions about the role of this vital but often neglected part of the world’s economy. It is likely to stimulate further controversy about the future of woods on the planet even if Radkau does not insist on the idea that they were the ‘foundation of human existence’ and ‘the secret key to the rise and fall of great powers’ (p. 1). The title is a little misleading as Radkau’s central interest is not wood as such – he deals only cursorily with the endlessly variable forms in which it is found and most of the purposes for which it is used – but its role in human society and the way in which different cultural approaches may affect its treatment and its preservation. Wood, and trees, although generally recognized as critical elements in human life, have not always received the attention they deserve and Radkau provides a useful summary of attitudes to trees and their more mythic aspects, the role of wood as a commodity in various forms, and the effects of changes in technological management of wood as a primary product and a critical part of economic life. Crucial to his argument is the position of wood and forests as legal entities disputed between people with different powers and positions, especially rulers and peasants. Radkau’s thesis is that much of the written material historians have relied on is really propaganda, not based on fact but on the political and economic needs of the government at the time. [End Page 270] Although he starts with the Stone Age, Radkau’s principal interest is in the period from the Enlightenment onwards and what until recently was seen as modern forestry that originated in Germany in the eighteenth century. Despite his claims to a global approach the focus is sharply Germanic. His comparisons of the detailed studies of the many small states inside the Holy Roman Empire with those of other cultures such as the Japanese, enlightening as they are, are heavily dependent for their information on one or two other scholars such as Conrad Totman. This raises some questions about the authority of his judgements and, at times, his accuracy. British historians will be surprised at the small attention paid to the history of wood in Britain, which is mostly confined to references to the needs of naval shipbuilding. The bibliography contains no reference to the canonical works of T. C. Smout on Scotland and refers only to early and small-scale works of Oliver Rackham. This means that their wider and important recent insights have not been considered in his presentation. Australian readers may also feel uncomfortable with his treatment of eucalypts in the overall argument as it appears to be based on limited understanding of the species. As presented, one might assume that Eucalyptus haemostoma (commonly known as the scribbly gum) is the generic name of the whole species and, the reader might be led to presume, the form of eucalypt that was enthusiastically adopted in European and Mediterranean plantations (pp. 320–21). Eucalyptus haemostoma, however, is largely confined to the Sydney region and has characteristics that do not suit it to other areas. Different gums have been selected for different needs in areas outside Australia. This makes it difficult to aggregate their behaviour. Radkau provides a defence of the interaction with and use of woodland by the unnamed and unsung ordinary residents of the land whose rights were destroyed and...

Le théâtre français de l’âge classique: II—l’apogée du classicisme by Charles Mazouer

policier: Double (dualities: crime/investigation, hero/criminal, and a “doublure” of the hero) Assassinat (the “contenu thématique”) dans la rue (the “dimension sociologique ”) Morgue (“la part d’imaginaire”) (20–23). For Lits, “le genre se présente comme une forme narrative reprenant les principes de l’énigme et de la devinette [des] récits les plus anciens de l’humanit é. Il ne fait que reproduire une démarche inscrite au cœur de l’humanité” (23). The texte policier is but a palimpsest to be decoded, and so reading it becomes an essentially hermeneutic act (24). For the author, the genre is proteiform (28) and evolves for its survival. One such change involves publishers’ developing “sous-catégories” (35) and another the “interpénétration entre policier et [la] rubrique des faits divers” (35). In the chapter entitled “La subversion des codes dans L’infaillible Silas Lord de S.-A. Steeman,” the author discusses how Steeman was able to renew the genre from within rather than merely to parody it as had been done previously (110). The authors treated in the most depth are Leblanc (although, in truth, it is his enduring Arsène Lupin who gets all the ink), Simenon, Thiry, Steeman, Véry, and Malet; and there are some interesting filiation studies—for example, between Simeon and Thiry (91–100). Lits discusses four works (representing as many ideological , historical, and sociological contexts) set in Rwanda, namely those of Ivan Reisdorff and Omer Marchal (writing pre-genocide) and Gérard de Villiers and Tierno Monembo (writing post-genocide). When Rwanda is used as the backdrop, he notes, the crime and the investigation are merely a pretext for foregrounding certain realities of Rwandan life or of those of a nation in transformation (124). This study offers numerous insights on the story of the roman d’énigme, its mythic aspects, the various dilemmas of its publishers, the sentiments of its authors (and the transitions of their heroes to film and television) and is worth reading for these discussions alone. It suffers a bit, however, in terms of freshness (the most recent citation being 2006) and coherence, from being trapped in its own genre— collected essays (Lits’s nine-page introduction goes a long way toward addressing these issues). Fayetteville (AR) Virginia Bellott MAZOUER, CHARLES. Le théâtre français de l’âge classique: II—l’apogée du classicisme. Paris: Champion, 2010. ISBN 978-2-7453-2099-5. Pp. 757. 150 a. This volume has the great strength and the great weakness of doing exactly what it says on the cover. Following on from Le théâtre français de la Renaissance (2002) and the first volume in the present series, Le premier XVIIe siècle (2002), Mazouer finally reaches his ‘high point,’ the ‘apogée’ of classicism, the purlieu of the ‘big three’ (Corneille, Molière, Racine). However, for those of us who have devoted our careers to a ‘revisionist’ view of seventeenth-century drama, who have dared to claim that Thomas Corneille is just as worthy of study as his brother, this is somewhat disappointing. In some ways this is a volume (and series) to be set alongside Henry Carrington Lancaster’s mammoth History of French Dramatic Literature. However, the quality of Lancaster’s undertaking is its astonishing comprehensiveness: no play is omitted, whether performed or unperformed, and it is this wealth of detail that makes the project both an overview and an invaluable research tool, whatever the reader’s level of scholarship. But then, one could 1266 FRENCH REVIEW 86.6 hardly expect Mazouer in three volumes (as announced on the back cover) to compete with Lancaster’s nine, and he is obviously aiming to provide an overview of a different kind, no doubt more directed at the student than the specialist. Nonetheless, given the amount of work that has been done on so-called ‘minor’ dramatists in recent years, I cannot help but feel that this is in some ways a missed opportunity. That is not to say that ‘minor’ dramatists do not feature here, but the main focus is indubitably on the canon. The book is divided into two parts: “La vie théâtrale dans...

O séjour de D. Pedro I em Paris e a imprensa francesa: familiaridade e exotismo

A imagem de d. Pedro I na imprensa francesa, durante o período em que viveu em Paris (de agosto de 1831 a janeiro de 1832), foi fundamental para o sucesso que ele alcançou na busca de apoios para a expedição com que retomaria a coroa de D. Maria II usurpada por D. Miguel. Graças ao empenho de estudiosos do Brasil, já circulava na Europa um considerável volume de informações sobre o país. Ao caráter liberal que d. Pedro dera ao modelo político brasileiro que lhe garantiria o apoio dos liberais franceses, juntavam-se aspectos míticos de sua trajetória e do país onde vivera. A familiaridade com que d. Pedro tratava a todos, nobres e plebeus, também seria um fator importante para a conquista de adesões à causa de d. Maria.

The Role of Myth in Plato and Its Prolongations in Antiquity

Plato was the first author to use the term mûthos (myth) in our modern sense.1 He described the role of myth in Athens, in order to contrast it with an argumentative philosophical discourse aimed at the truth. Even so, he had recourse to this unverifiable story not only in a practical role, in order to persuade the citizen to obey moral norms and political laws, but also in a theoretical context, evoking premises from which philosophical discourse could develop, and picturing realities such as the soul, that could not be grasped by either the senses or the intellect. With the disappearance of the city-state and the constitution of Kingdoms and Empires, the social and political aspects of myth tended to disappear in the Mediterranean world, allowing the soul to take “centre-stage.” While theogony, cosmogony, and anthropogony persisted, they did so only to provide a framework for a vast drama—that of the salvation of the human soul—as described in the Chaldaean Oracles and the treatises of the Sethian Gnostics.

Negotiating the Ritual and Social Order through Spectacle: The (Re)Production of Macassan/Yol▒u Histories1

Broadly framed in terms of performance theories by Turner and Beeman, this paper weaves together the historical, mythical, ritual and performative aspects of a 1997 encounter in Sulawesi between Yolŋu (an Aboriginal people of northern Australia) and Macassans (people from southern Sulawesi, Indonesia). The focus of the paper is an indigenous opera called Trepang, which is based on the centuries‐long history of trading relations and family connections between the two groups, and the way its performance was used by the Yolŋu and Macassan cast members to renegotiate their often turbulent shared history, along with the contemporary social and ritual order. In this light, Trepang can be understood as a restorative social process, a means of pursuing a common path and a way of ameliorating the discrepancies of the past—bringing the parties finally together as one. Analysing the social context in which the performance of historical ‘truths’ was negotiated, I unpack key events in the staging of this ‘play within a play’ and demonstrate the need to transgress the dualism of ritual and spectacle.

Introduction: Statistical and Methodological Myths and Urban Legends

Although a kernel of truth or appropriateness underlies each one, numerous methodological and statistical criteria have been stretched beyond that kernel and have evolved into myths and urban legends. They are truly legends in that those applying it were told it was so and have thus accepted it and perpetuated it themselves in interactions with others. This is particularly prevalent in the manuscript development and review processes in which the mythical aspects of those criteria are applied. The end result is a degradation of the research process. The feature topic's purpose is to uncover the kernel of truth underlying the mythical nature of alternative model testing, cutoff values for certain criteria, common method bias, and mediation test. It is developmental in nature in that the desired result is to end the legendary application of those criteria and return to applying them in their intended manner.

The People in Arms: Military Myth and National Mobilization since the French Revolution (review)

Reviewed by: The People in Arms: Military Myth and National Mobilization since the French Revolution Eliot A. Cohen The People in Arms: Military Myth and National Mobilization since the French Revolution. Edited by Daniel Moran and Arthur Waldron. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-81432-4. Notes. Index. Pp. 268. £47.50. If one had to pick a central concept that characterized European warfare in the nineteenth century the levée en masse would naturally come to mind. In the usual narrative, the French Revolution's ability to unleash and exploit the energies of its citizens swept away the armies of the ancien régime, who could not recover until they had, in a famous phrase, "rifled the armory of the revolution." To be sure, military historians have long pointed out the gross weaknesses of such an oversimplified view: the reliance of the French armies on the drill books and methods, and even many of the personnel of the monarchical army; the evolution of the French army under Napoleon into a bureaucratically efficient machine in which republican enthusiasm played a much diminished role; the effectiveness of militaries like the British which, once reformed, could fight the French on equal terms. Still, the idea of mass warfare characterized by a mobilization of soldiers from the entire population, and supported by nationalist ardor, remains a topic of interest to historians. The People in Arms is a competent collection of essays on this subject. Not surprisingly, the focus is on France and secondarily Europe, although there are two essays on the idea of the levée en masse in China and Vietnam. The one American chapter, by John Whiteclay Chambers, deals more with American impressions of European events than with the American experience proper. This is unfortunate, perhaps, because the American model of mass citizen participation in warfare deserves more comparative analysis than it normally receives (some of the work of Stig Förster and his colleagues being a noteworthy exception). The Civil War, for example, seems to have had some effect on British thinking about voluntary citizen militias in the latter part of the century, and even the Revolution had its effect on European soldiers through men like Johann von Ewald. The essays here explore different aspects of the myth of the people in arms. They highlight in different contexts the tension inherent between the [End Page 248] ideological or mythic aspects of citizen service in war, on the one hand, and the administrative requirements of raising armies adequate for particular purposes on the other. Convincingly, if unsurprisingly, the authors all conclude that myth and reality rarely coincided, and for a variety of reasons. Unfortunately, the technological dimension is missing in much of this book: the levée en masse requires, after all, ways of war in which weapons can be mass-produced and soldiers trained with them in relatively short periods of time. They require too forms of warfare in which sheer numbers count for a great deal, something which is not always the case. As in all collections, some of these essays are better than others. Arthur Waldron's piece on Chinese discovery of the French revolutionary experience, and the later translation of the French socialist Jean Jaurès's book on military service is a fascinating study of how history and military concepts move between continents. By itself, in fact, it makes a merely useful edited volume something more valuable. Eliot A. Cohen Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Baltimore, Maryland Copyright © 2005 Society for Military History

Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: A Life of John Snow

Cholera, Chloroform, and the Science of Medicine: A Life of John Snow

Usual Culture: The Jet

This paper argues that the advent of the turbo jet engine and consequent acceleration in the construction of temporal-spatial dimension enabled novel social and cultural capability. The scientific and mythic aspects of jet power have played out in Canada, from the innovative theorization of Marshall McLuhan to the Avro Arrow and SARS incidents. Assessing the impact of jet propulsion, this paper proposes that while allied with older systems and tropes, jet travel stimulated the consolidation of a broad arena of practice defined as usual culture. The theorization involves the assertion of a prior and heightened interdependence between technology and cultural practice. The focus is upon registers of literary representation that recount the transformative and disruptive outcomes of the rapid transcontinental interchange of the individual body and bodies of knowledge. A further analytic is the redefinition of the aesthetic with respect to technology, especially aeronautical, in Modern Movement discourse. Notwithstanding contrary corporate and political agency, the jet is held to enact the radical pluralism envisaged by Modernism.

OPERA, MYTH, SOCIETY: HOW DO THEY CORRELATE?

1. Introduction Opera, myth, and society: how do they correlate? This question has been asked for many years but still evokes new interpretations which we can examine in some major theoretical works relevant to this topic, both methodologically and in terms of the specifics of opera, yet receive no mention in the piece of one's epistemology. For example: Carolyn Abbate, Mary Cicora, Herbert Lindenberger, and others. Therefore, it is not at all unusual to apply ideas of mythology and models from the domains of opera analysis, musico-historical theory or hermeneutics to opera. Musicologists, opera historians and other proficient figures in the field have always been interested in exploring convergences and orthodoxies of the relationship between the evolution of operatic genre, mythology, and society and have either studied the theme of artistic pieces, or the nature of the art form as such, emphasising the effects of musico-historical and societal backgrounds of works, the system of production, or the changing nature of libretto, and the content of creative expression. Taking into account that it has been for a long time widely recognised and accepted that the interpretation of opera can be associated with the myth, this paper will focus on the specific features of a particular repertoire as well as on some specific underdeveloped subtopics within this broad theoretical domain. Therefore the article may be interesting for readers who are not familiar with certain recent characteristics of the Slovenian operatic activity. On the other hand, it may seem somewhat behind the state of the art to the readers who are familiar with the culture-theoretical approaches to opera. The essay reflects some mythical aspects of representations of the opera. In Roland Barthes's words, the starting point of this reflection is some kind of naturalness and self-obviousness with which operatic art and its common sense imagery constantly dress up a reality which, even though it is one we live in or just pass by, is undoubtedly determined by standardised codes of understanding (Barthes 2000:11). As an anthropologist who was (is) educated in Slovenia during transition period, my approach to opera is maybe an idiosyncratic one. Opera as musical, compositional, stylistic and aesthetic structure is by far the most difficult field to analyse. Why? This question in itself could be and is an anthropological problem. But if we take into account opera's component, we can say something about its social power according to the methods sociologists and anthropologists use to understand phenomena: by studying the use of their own scientific practices. Opera is peculiar: its signs produce incongruities and miscalculations. It invites a multiplicity of approaches, challenges orthodoxy, and embraces ambiguity. As the editors of the collection Analyzing Opera: Verdi and Wagner point out in their introduction, analysing opera is one of the liveliest (and most polemical) areas in modern-day musical scholarship (Abbate & Parker 1989), but is getting an increasingly visible position also in other sciences and in the humanities. 2. How does peripheral society mythologise opera? That opera is, among the cultural representations, unusually revealing of pressures within the society that creates it is not a new idea. In the early 20th century, many connoisseurs (e.g. Edward J. Dent, Paul Bekker, Donald J. Grout, and others) were aware of it, but they did not care to deal with the question systematically. What has brought about a new approach in understanding the relationship between opera phenomenon and its background is the rapid spread, from the mid-1970s, of an interest in the or collective dimension of history, partly under the influence of the group of French historians (Marc Bloch, Fernand Braudel). Then in sciences in the 1980s (Theodor W. Adorno, Rosanne Martorella, John Rosselli, Herbert Lindenberger, et al), and in the 1990s with the movement of the so-called new musicology (Carolyn Abbate, Roger Parker, Arthur Groos, Gary Tomlinson, and many others). …