Baroque Rhetoric Research Articles

Forsynet, giftermålspolitikken og døden i leilighetsdiktningen til Københavns boktrykker-klan Godiche, Høpffner, Berling og Møller

Walter Baumgartner: Forsynet, giftermålspolitikken og dødeni leilighetsdiktningen til Københavns boktrykker-klan Godiche, Høpffner,Berling og Møller
 At the beginning of the eighteenth century four of the most important publishinghouses in Copenhagen were owned by a clan of printers that included immigrantsfrom Germany: Høpffner, Godiche, Berling and Glasing/Møller. My case study examinesthe occasional poetry written for weddings, apprentices’ final examinationsand bereavements. This genre, which has always been considered as of little value, ishere taken seriously, with its roots in baroque rhetoric and poetics. It is accorded anaesthetic value and various social and identity-building functions. This is utilitarianpoetry (Gebrauchslyrik) for the prosperous artisan class, which circulated privately orsemi-publicly in the form of elaborately designed single sheets or small booklets. Theauthors were often students or poets who wanted to earn some money. In addition tothe explicit content, symptomatic gaffes and omissions shed light on facts and problemsconcerning ‘das ganze Haus’, the (consanguineous) marriage, the succession, religionand the breaking down of the guild system. The baroque repertoire of topoi and formssoon became inadequate to deal with more recent social and aesthetic developments,and occasional poetry gradually declined after 1800.

Rhetorical Scheme in Georg Philipp Telemann’s Sonatas for Two Violins or Flutes (1727)

The relevance of this article is due to the lack of research of G.Ph. Telemann’s works in the context of Baroque rhetoric. The main purpose of this article is to reveal the content of the Six Sonatas for two violins or flutes by G.Ph. Telemann in the context of the rhetorical scheme. In contrast to the rhetorical figures, the components of the rhetorical canon in a musical piece are not commonly examined in fundamental theorists’ works, and for this reason we suggested to reveal ways of its realization in the G.Ph. Telemann’s duo sonatas. The results of the study have shown that a turn to the rhetorical scheme during the analysis is a completely historical and logical method. The understanding of the subject of musical rhetoric has changed in the historical space, but a great number of Baroque theorists considered the possibility of defining and turning to a rhetorical canon in music, in analogy with verbal rhetoric. The analysis of G.Ph. Telemann’s duo sonatas allows conclusively conclude that they represent four stages of the rhetorical scheme (except the memoria): inventio – as an introduction to a whole composition or as a subject (theme) of a single movement, as well as performer’s improvisation (before or in-between the movements), dispositio – as a specific plan of the form development; decoratio – the use of rhetorical figures and phrases, as well as compositional and performer’s ornamentation and pronuntiatio – methods of sound production, phrasing, dynamics and articulation. The correspondence between G.Ph. Telemann’s music and the rhetorical concept proves not only his profound theoretical knowledge, but also demonstrates the practical use of the rhetorical scheme in his works, which substantiates this analytical approach in this research and also takes researchers and performers to a deeper level of comprehension of the poetics in G.Ph. Telemann’s works.

A Distant Reading of Legal Dissertations from German Universities in the Seventeenth Century

AbstractScholars and students at early modern European universities wrote hundreds of thousands of dissertations. One reason why these sources have long been neglected is that they defy any individual's capacity for close reading. This article adopts a digital distant reading approach to uncover long-term trends in the titles of over 20,000 legal dissertations written at German universities during the seventeenth century. Providing a pathway into a forbidding archive, the article highlights the dissertations’ interest for the history of jurisprudence and its receptiveness to social change, the history of universities and academic publishing, baroque rhetoric, and cultural, political, and economic history. The titles reveal a markedly declining interest in civil law, with topical issues like debt and marriage eluding this trend. Initially, dissertations were often written in dialogic form, but these were gradually supplanted by more single-voiced and monographic texts. Jurists increasingly preferred sharply delineated, diverse, and often original subjects, writing about anything from somnambulism to pearl fishing. The way in which seventeenth-century jurists expanded the scope of their writing reflects broader revaluations of scholarly curiosity and baroque polyhistorism as well as the heightened stature of an epistemic community that interpreted ever more spheres of life through its own categories.

The Circulation of Sciences in Europe, or Peter the Great’s ‘Greek project

In his famous speech of 1714, Peter I depicts Europe as a single organism with Greece as its heart: it is from here that “the sciences,” like blood, once flowed and along the homeward path they run, having first gained a firm foothold in Russia. The18th century perceived this comparison as a real political program: the similarity was supposed to imply that the European culture should be brought back to Greece on Russian bayonets. This rendering was born with the utopian “Greek project” of Catherine II and lasted until the end of the century. Neither confirming nor contradicting it, the 19th century prefers to see in Peter’s words pride in the successes of the Russian enlightenment which was introduced during the two decades of his reformist activity. The 20th century, burdened with the baggage of literary associations, interprets this image as commonplace for baroque rhetoric, a routine metaphor for translatio studii with little or no actual political meaning. Undoubtedly authentic, transmitted by several early witnesses, the speech became part of the ‘Petrine myth,’ but, surprisingly enough, was never the subject of critical source analysis. Thus, its historical context and intended meaning remained largely obscured. A comparative study leads to the conclusion that all its renderings originated from a common literary source. The archetypal version was that of F. Chr. Weber, while the other variants are more or less remote copies containing deliberate amendments. A closer look at the relevant paragraphs of Weber’s notes reveals the true pathos of the speech. Peter’s rhetoric, prompted by his immediate concerns, boils down to an admiration for the culture of Western Europeans. The historical context clarifies what motivates the central image of the simile — Greece as the heart of European enlightenment: shortly before the episode, the tsar was treated to a Greek speech delivered by the six-year-old son of the learned Moldavian prince Dimitrie Cantemir who was one of Peter’s principal allies.

К изучению визуальной поэтики старообрядческой литературы XVIII века

The article raises the problem of visual poetics in the Old Believer literature. The author analyzes the texts of Baroque rhetoric and sermons created on the Vyg during the 18 th century, including the works written by the Vyg leaders Andrei Denisov and Andrei Borisov. The author argues that focalization in the Old Believer literary culture is linked to general poetic attitudes. The Baroque Poetics implied the intensive inclusion of the illustrative material in the texts. Visual metaphors were meant to clarify the writer's idea, and simultaneously execute a didactic function. The author shows that visual images and metaphors used in the texts written at the beginning of the 18 th century helped to create an idealized image of the world, which itself was based on the structure- forming constants of the Baroque worldview. The excerpts from baroque rhetoric reflected the ideas common for the Baroque culture, such as the contrasting nature of the world, the world as a labyrinth, “vanitas vanitatum”, “life is a dream” etc. The usage of emblem is considered to be an example of the implementation of conceptual metaphors. The author displays how through the visualization techniques Andrei Denisov constructs the ideal image of Vyg as a place of spiritual asceticism. Details of the real-life and landscape are included in the utopian discourse, which encompasses the topic of paradise as well. Different symbols such as honey, bees, gold, sunshine, rose and others are used. The article discusses the first detailed description of the elephant in Russian literature, included in the allegorical context of Andrei Denisov’s preaching. At the end of the 18 th century, Andrei Borisov started emphasizing the author’s personality. Naturalistically accurate descriptions of the author’s condition focus attention on his viewpoint and also serve as an expression of the didactic thoughts. The detailed analysis of the unique example of ekphrasis from Andrei Borisov’s work, a description of the portrait of Catherine the Second by D. Levitsky, is provided.

Preaching the communication strategy of the Catholic Church in the age of the House of Wetting in Poland. Ways of shaping social religious concepts

AbstractIn the first half of the 18th century, the position of the Catholic Church in the Commonwealth was strengthen and it dominated other Christian denominations. The network of the parishes was expanded, and the accessibility to churches improved. New forms of saints cult as well as other forms of piousness had developed. The preaching played an important role in this process. The preaching in the Commonwealth was not just a Sunday sermon, but above all sermons related to homiletics of the late Baroque, connected with religious ceremonies eg. funerals. The preacher was to work through emotions, the achievements of Baroque rhetoric used, although in the Commonwealth, own solutions were developed to enable effective communication with the recipient representing the Old Polish culture. The size of this impact was significant, as evidenced by numerous prints dating back to that period, but also manuscripts with recorded places of preaching, or impressions from preaching preserved in memoirs or correspondence. It should be emphasized that the sermons not only carved the system of moral values or the piety of the society, but also influenced the ideas of everyday life, the roles of individual and groups in society, as well as the relation to authority

Norwidowska łza. Wokół liryczności i retoryczności

Norwidian Tear. On Lyricism and Rhetoric The text presents in a multi-faceted way the motif of tears in Norwid’s writings. The motif is shown within a new research context, i.e. the tradition of baroque rhetoric. The author proposes a well-supported thesis, in which she argues that in the case of Norwid’s writings lyricism grows out of the rhetoric thus creating a new artistic dimension.

Informacyjność a ozdobność tytułów w tekstach żałobnych XVII wieku

“Pompa funebris” of the 17th century, was not only a coffin portrait but also a mournful text in verse or in prose, including numerous sermons. They were usually printed as separate texts, and only renowned preachers, e.g., P. Skarga, included them in their books. Such texts were criticised for excessively long titles and ornamentality, because the then conceptism has not been taken into account. Conceptism valued the amazement of listeners and readers by means of, for instance, ornamentality of metaphors and very numerous imaginary and surprising allusions to heraldic elements. If we isolate three main parts on the title page, it becomes manifest that it is the title which is visibly ornamental. Also, the part providing exact information about the deceased person surprises us with praises in her/his honour and a complex naming system of positions and offices. Similarly, the information about the authors (apart from the recognized poets) is very detailed and amplifies their positions and titles. We discern in the above a reflection of the writing “fashion”, compliant with the presumptions of Baroque rhetoric and stylistics, but also the conviction of the nobles (magnates), searching for confirmation of their value through superlatives and conspicuous manifestation of wealth and weirdness.

Debussy, Wolpe and Dialectical Form

This article is a survey of the emergence of dialectical form from principles of Baroque rhetoric through Hegelian dialectics to twentieth-century music. The appearance of the Commendatore in Mozart's Don Giovanni is examined as a prototype of dialectical form. Debussy's Des pas sur la neige is graphed in detail to discover the interactions of the diatonic, whole tone and octatonic collections. Wolpe's Form for Piano is likewise analyzed in depth for its hexachordal and symbolic processes. Four dialectical tropes are identified in Form: Emergence, Interpenetration, Transformation and Symmetry. The article concludes that Debussy and Wolpe shared a common understanding of musical form, as well as a kinship relation as far as musical imagery is concerned.

The Leper in Blue: Coercive Performance and the Contemporary Latin American Theater by Amalia Gladhart (review)

1012 Reviews not to be found in Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Salgado reveals the importance of Damaso Alonso's 1926 translation of A Portrait (El artista adolescente : Retrato (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva)), a translation he shows was very much informed by the poetic language of Gongora, the Spanish Baroque poet central to the 1927 Generation's revaloration of Baroque poetics. Thus, as Salgado perspicuously explains, the Baroque revival is 'intimately connected with the assimilation of a European aesthetic' (p. 81), i.e. Modernism, and Alonso's text becomes a nexus linking Joyce's European Modernism and Lezama's Caribbean neobaroque. Incidentally, this section of the book seems to me to suggest the need for a full-length study of the language of Alonso's translation of Joyce's work, exploring its correspondences with Baroque rhetoric. Salgado's concluding analysis of the uncanny similarities between the polemic occasioned by attempts to produce 'corrected' versions of Ulysses and Paradiso and the perceived need to produce such versions is an absorbing and appropriate ending which furtherillustrates the close relationship of Joyce's and Lezama's work through displaced symptoms of the Freudian kind. My only criticisms ofthe book are minor ones, and concern the publisher ratherthan the author. The index is but an index of names, while the last chapter is, ironically, slightly marred by a greater number of typographic and orthographic errors than in previous ones (although these are to be found throughout the book, especially in Spanish quotations or in the inconsistent rendering of original German terms such as Bildungsroman or Walpurgisnacht). However, the errors are not so frequent that the reader of Salgado's book, like some readers of Joyce's and Lezama's novels discussed in this last chapter, would be tempted to establish 'a link between textual errancy and the author's moral corruption' (p. 194). Far from this, Salgado's book is a lucid account which displays considerable virtues in its detailed documentation and handling of complex texts, ideas, and issues. University of Stirling Alexis Grohmann The Leper in Blue: Coercive Performance and the Contemporary Latin American Theater . By Amalia Gladhart. (North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures) Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, Department of Modern Languages. 2000. 245 pp. $34-95The book sets out to be a study of contemporary Latin American theatre, focusing on the interaction of the plays and their audiences. The strongest point ofthe volume is the introduction, which presents an in-depth analysis of the theory of performance, supported by an impressive overview of the existing body of research on the subject. Such an approach appeals both to specialists in Latin American theatre studies and to researchers in other fields of Latin American culture, as it offers an analysis of a wide range of plays with a solid theoretical back-up, which is intended to inform the underlying argument of the whole work. The book often favours less researched works, stepping away from popular names in Latin American theatre, such as Rodolfo Usigli and Carlos Fuentes. This has advantages and disadvantages. While the choice of works gives the less researched playwrights the attention they deserve, in several chapters the absence of the connection with the body of mainstream writing creates the impression that this has had little or no effect on the later pieces. Moreover, Gladhart's decision is not put consistently into effectthroughout the volume. In the firstcomparative analysis of historical plays she is faithfulto the strategy, studying the works of Vicente Lenero, Jose Antonio Rial, Sabina Berman, and Miguel Sabido. However, the focal point of MLR, 97.4, 2002 1013 the chapter, which is the multiple interpretations of a historical event, immediately evokes Usigli's renowned El gesticulador, which remains unexplored. A deeper, more complex meaning ofthe multiplicity of 'truth' is thereforeabandoned in favour ofsupporting , often superficially, the idea of 'coercive performance'. A short and succinct overview of the tradition of Latin American historical plays and semi-documentary testimonioswould have offered a wider intertextual background, against which the study of less well-known plays would have appeared contextually logical. Instead, the existing seven-line nod to the mainstream historical plays gives...

Baroque Prose in the Theater: Ben Jonson

Many years ago Morris W. Croll's studies of seventeenth-century prose demonstrated that the so-called anti-Ciceronian movement in prose style—which included in England such writers as Bacon, Jonson, Browne, Hall, and Burton—based itself not merely on a refusal to imitate Cicero, but on certain common philosophical attitudes, chiefly Stoic and libertine, and on common rhetorical models in Seneca and Tacitus. Croll, having sketched the intellectual tradition in which these writers worked, went on to examine their writings empirically. In a brilliant essay entitled “The Baroque Style in Prose,” he outlined their chief syntactic procedures and showed how these sprang from and reflected a common aesthetic. A more recent study, The Senecan Amble by George Williamson (London, 1951), has amplified Croll's historical researches, attempting to fix the anti-Ciceronian or Senecan movement more firmly amid its tangled antecedents and its numerous consequences. Both Croll and Williamson, however, have concerned themselves primarily with stylistic theory, and with large historical sequences in which individual authors appear as points on a complex graph. It still remains to study some of the writers in question more closely as individuals, both to verify their locations on the graph and also to explore the richness and multiplicity of individual accents that compose the common style. The purpose of the present essay is a simple one: to focus attention on a single author, Ben Jonson. The evidence will show, I think, that the case of Jonson bears out Croll's findings to a remarkable extent, and that although Croll fails to mention Jonson in his article on baroque prose, Jonson has some claim to be regarded as the baroque stylist par excellence, whose highly personal, highly inflected style realizes to their fullest extent the principles of the baroque rhetoric.