Neoclassical Aesthetics Research Articles

De narices extravagantes y otras bromas de la naturaleza: la estructura del strange loop y la defensa de las líneas curvas en el “episodio de las narices” de Tristram Shandy

“The Tale of Slawkenbergius”, also known as the “Episode of the Nose”, is one of the most recognised and quoted passages from Tristram Shandy (Sterne 1759-1767). This short story from the fourth volume of Sterne’s novel has received a great deal of attention in the specialised bibliography. However, the studies so far published analyse the story as an isolated episode and concentrate mainly on the use of irony, double entendre and puns as a means of alluding to sexual issues (Gallagher 2018; Walsh 2009). The aim of this paper is to study “The Tale of Slawkenbergius” no longer as a humorous representation of the grotesque, but as a metaliterary manifestation of Sterne’s poetics, thus relating the tale to the structure of the novel. The way in which Sterne uses the device of the “strange loop” in this passage to express his subscription to Hogarth’s aesthetics and to Hogarth’s ideas about the “lines of beauty and grace” will be determined. It will also relate the apology for the beauty of a colossal-nosed, disproportionate hero that is established in this episode to the defence of “deformed” art forms, removed from neoclassical aesthetics, that Tristram establishes throughout his narrative.

The Living Death of Antiquity: Neoclassical Aesthetics

The Living Death of Antiquity: Neoclassical Aesthetics

Wieniawski’s “Legende” and Enescu’s “The Undead”: a Romantic-Neoclassical Dyad

The present paper examines stylistic change in musical history by comparing the treatment of the same motif, the ill-starred lovers, in a romantic piece, Wieniawski’s Legende, Op. 17, and a post-Wagnerian composition by George Enescu: Strigoii (The Undead) Oratory, setting to music Eminescu’s homonymous legend, which in its turn, draws on Bidu’s Tower legend. Whereas Wieniawski was writing a grieving soul’s complaint in the manner of romantic self-expressionism, Enescu was attached to the national poet, to his people’s ancient past and to folk legends in the spirit of the neoclassical aesthetics of a part, the most prolific one of musical modernism.

Is Russia Fascist? Unravelling Propaganda East and West by Marlene Laruelle

Reviewed by: Is Russia Fascist? Unravelling Propaganda East and West by Marlene Laruelle Sarah Gear Is Russia Fascist? Unravelling Propaganda East and West. By Marlene Laruelle. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2021. vii+251 pp. $39.95; £32. ISBN 978–1–50175–413–5. In Is Russia Fascist?, Marlene Laruelle explores a dichotomy central to the identity of contemporary Russia. Although Russia is regularly accused of fascism by politicians in the West, the country perceives itself as actively anti-fascist. Meanwhile, Russia directs its own charges of fascism towards Europe and the United States. In this carefully constructed study Laruelle critiques populist trends, refuting such accusations against Russia. She contends that the West's indictments of fascism disenfranchise Russia on the world stage, while Russia's counter-accusations allow it to claim moral superiority over the West. For Laruelle, accusations of fascism are a 'discursive struggle' (p. 8) deployed by both Russia and the West in order to define themselves. This interplay between differing ethnocentric perspectives is at the core of Laruelle's work as she contextualizes attitudes towards fascism in both the Soviet and post-Soviet worlds, while exploring the Kremlin's tolerance of conflicting ideologies. After considering the main elements of fascism, the first four chapters describe its status in Russia, investigating the association between fascism and Nazism, and the paradoxical Soviet fascination with Nazi culture. Laruelle demonstrates the two cultures' parallel interest in neo-classical aesthetics and physical perfection and discusses how television programmes such as the hugely popular Seventeen Moments of Spring, with its spy hero Max Otto von Stierlitz, tapped into this interest. Laruelle describes anti-fascism as modern Russia's 'foundational myth' [End Page 528] (p. 43), demonstrated by its role in defeating the Nazi regime in the Great Patriotic War. This victory is promoted by Vladimir Putin's government as contemporary Russia's defining moment because it is one of the few instances of the 'usable past' (p. 49) that the population almost unanimously supports. The indisputable anti-fascist status of post-1940s Russia and the Soviet states is emphasized in schools, where textbooks reaffirm Putin's position, creating a society ill-equipped for open debate. Conflicting views held by Russia and the former Soviet states regarding the Soviet Union's role in the Second World War have provoked the current so-called 'memory wars' in Eastern Europe. These have in turn caused Russia to launch accusations of fascism against Ukraine and the Baltic States in response to anti-Soviet sentiment. From Chapter 5 onwards, Laruelle weighs the competing ideologies permitted by the Kremlin, including those of prominent right-wing political figures such as Alexandr Dugin. She also considers Putin's own support for right-wing groups and discusses how this can be reconciled with Russia's anti-fascist self-image. Laruelle suggests this ideological fluidity is driven by the government's desire to control the population: this approach is improvised primarily to prevent a return to the economic and political chaos of the 1990s. Laruelle concludes that Russia is neither fascist nor totalitarian, but rather illiberal. She argues that fascism is not a useful framework for analysing Russia, suggesting instead that any future studies should examine the prevalence of 'hybrid regimes, paternalism and illiberalism' (p. 155). Her penultimate chapter draws a convincing parallel between Putin and Charles de Gaulle, which provides a helpful counterpoint to the more politically charged comparisons between the Russian president and Hitler or Stalin. She concedes, however, that some elements of fascism are present in Russia, evident in the macho 'militia subculture' (p. 138). Indeed, the prominent position of politician, writer, and former National Bolshevik Zakhar Prilepin is testament to the enduring power of macho, bordering on fascist, ideology. But as this nuanced investigation demonstrates, to label Putin's regime as fascist is to obfuscate the political situation in contemporary Russia. Is Russia Fascist? provides a clear, balanced assessment of contemporary Russian politics, serving not only as a sensible dissection of the status of fascism in Russia, but also as a guide to that country's problematic political structures. Laruelle's thorough contextualization of Russian beliefs about fascism, the Second World War, and attitudes towards the...

Still Life

AbstractThis essay explores the subtle interplay between sculptural bodies and animate bodies by exploring several “moments” in the history of classical and neoclassical aesthetics. These exemplary moments include the ancient Roman period (Pliny's reflections on Greek sculpture); the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (Winckelmann's reflections on Greek sculpture and later Italian excavations at Pompeii); the twentieth century (Nazi adaptations of ancient Greek sculpture in Munich); and the twenty-first century (recurring discussion of polychromatic Greek art). Given that most of the art under discussion was “pagan,” this slippage between sculptural bodies and animate bodies highlights the presence of desire, specifically a desire for forbidden bodies.

INTROSPECTION AS A SIGN OF LYRICALLY-DRAMATIC GENRE TYPE IN E. ELGAR’S VIOLIN CONCERTO

Statement of the problem. Edward Elgar’s instrumental concertos occupy the special place in European music. Most of the violin concertos of Romantic composers were written before E. Elgar created his own (1910); the concertos by J. Sibelius (1904) and M. Reger (1908) are closest to this work in time, and Elgar’s Concerto almost coincides with the chronology of K. Nielsen’s Violin Concerto (1911), which has already been, however, significantly influenced by neoclassical aesthetics. In five years, K. Szymanowski’s First Violin Concerto (1916) will appear, rejecting the romantic way of expression, and later a new “era” in the development of this genre will begin. Elgar’s Violin Concerto (1910), the first of his two instrumental concerts, is another step of the composer on the way to mastering various musical genres, the accumulation of new creative ideas. In a number of parameters, the work is closer to the First Symphony, becoming almost a doppelganger of it but with a solo violin, an instrument played by the composer himself. Thus, the study of the Concerto is relevant, at least, in three aspects: in the analysis of the creative evolution of the composer, for understanding his attitude to the concert genre, and for revealing the meaning of the composer’s self-expression. Consideration of the work in the aspect of the latter – identifying features of introspection in the music of the Violin Concerto as part of its genre structure – is the purpose of this study, which is the first attempt of its kind. Conclusions. Elgar’s Violin concerto follows the tradition of lyricallydramatic type of symphonism, which the composer employed in his First symphony written shortly before the Concerto. It can be seen both in thematically-intonational content and in special features of dramaturgy and composition (“throughout” themes, large duration, conflict dramaturgy). The genre of instrumental concerto suggests additional dimension of the work, relation between solo and orchestral parts, and in this case the composer maintains a balance in such things as distribution of themes and their development and interpretation of soloist’s part. The introspective character of the Violin concerto is most obvious in its Cadenza – the most significant episode for this genre – due to its significant length, the lyrical way of expression, reminiscences and derivative themes, the rejection of a clear metrorhythmic organization that allows the perception of Cadenza as a stop in time for lyrical reflection. Other aspects of introspectiveness include the predominance of lyrical themes, a large number of fragments with quiet dynamics and the genre’s predicted concentration of attention on the soloist, although the composer retains balance between solo and orchestral parts.

From the classical ideal to the neoclassical aesthetics of the body in the art of post-revolutionary France. A new era of plastic anatomy at the Academy and the School of Fine Arts

Background. The article considers the stages of formation of anatomical science in two major art institutions of France in the XIX century, the Academy of Painting and Sculpture and the School of Fine Arts. Developments of theoretical works and bases of formation and development of plastic anatomy by known anatomists, anthropologists and artists-scientists of the XIX century are considered. Particular attention was paid to leading scientific and theoretical manuals on plastic anatomy. Excerpts from the works of the leaders of this discipline or researchers of their heritage have been translated from the original language. The methodical principles of teaching plastic anatomy are substantiated and the names of personalities who influenced the formation of plastic anatomy in the Academy and the School of Fine Arts are given. Their scientific work was of great importance for the development of anatomical science at the Academy and the School of Fine Arts. Thanks to them, not only the teaching process but also its spatial and architectural environment becomes important. The genesis of the term "plastic anatomy" is considered. Particular attention is paid to the transition from the term "anatomy" to the artistic term "plastic anatomy", which, in fact, is becoming typical of higher art education. Objectives. The purpose of the study is to highlight the methods of teaching plastic anatomy at the Academy and the School of Fine Arts during the XIX century. Methods. With the help of theoretical, informational methods and generalization method, the obtained research data were systematized and streamlined, the possibility of finding a solution to the problem was revealed and the practicality of the obtained results was evaluated. Results. For the first time in Ukrainian art history, material on the methods of teaching plastic anatomy was collected at the Academy and the School of Fine Arts of the XIX century. Conclusions. Prospects for further research require clarification of the relationship between anatomical practice and the philosophy of pragmatism, as well as a closer examination of some famous personalities (artists and anatomists-scientists) given in the article, who made a great contribution to the development of plastic anatomy.

William Temple’s ‘Sharawadji’ and the poetics of world literature

The article examines the ‘active presence’ (D. Damrosch) of the Chinese garden in the literary and cultural history of the English Augustan Age. Special attention is paid to W. Temple’s role as an intermediary in the comprehension of a foreign cultural phenomenon; interpretations of his description of the Chinese garden generated an entirely new tradition in the English literature of the early 18th c. J. Addison identified the Chinese garden with the idea of harmony, making it part and parcel of Neoclassical aesthetics. Pope followed the same logic. In his essay, Castell brings together the classical and the Chinese traditions, where the former does not act as an approving authority, rather it is the Chinese tradition that helps give it a more nuanced description. Quite a few English country homes display a combination of Neoclassical principles and elements of the Chinese garden, the new landscaping style summarized by Pope. Augustans’ Chinese garden draws on two national worldviews, but just like the world ‘sharawadji’ introduced byTemple, it belongs to the realm of imagination, at the crossroads of languages and cultures, none of which can fully claim it as their own.

Romanticism, Hellenism, and the Philosophy of Nature by William S. Davis

Reviewed by: Romanticism, Hellenism, and the Philosophy of Nature by William S. Davis Christopher R. Clason William S. Davis. Romanticism, Hellenism, and the Philosophy of Nature. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 156 pp. Late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century European philosophical trajectories were dramatically shifted by the epistemologies of Kant and Fichte. Furthermore, these epistemologies placed the very objects that human subjects experience in a gravely problematic relationship, where it seemed that the essential object could not be known directly, or it would have to be subsumed into a subjectivism that many found difficult to swallow—especially (and most tragically) Kleist, but others as well. Davis's book offers an engagingly readable account of how several of the main figures of literature and philosophy confronted the problem head-on, beginning with the early friendship of Schelling, Hölderlin, and Hegel, progressing through Goethe to the British Romantics Shelley and Byron, and then returning to Hölderlin, all with an eye on how the contemporary world of letters and philosophy valued the ancient Greeks, and how their reception of classical thought aided them in coming to terms with the contemporary abstract view of the aesthetic object in the physical world. In the "Introduction," Davis presents a basic problem endemic to Romantic philosophy, especially the "Ich-Philosophie" of Fichte and his followers. Quoting Frederick Beiser regarding a key issue concerning subjectivity, he illustrates how among the early Romantics there arose a fear that a perceiving subject has no knowledge "beyond its own circle of consciousness." As one possible way through the subjectivity conundrum, several early Romantic philosophers (e.g., Hölderlin, Goethe, Percy Shelley, and Schelling) attempt to find a discursive strategy, by employing literary metaphors of "a restorative unity that lies beyond the subject." Davis suggests that for these writers the solution does not rest in a philosophical-epistemological paradigm, but rather in an artistic one, in an act of the aesthetic imagination, informed by the philosophy of nature and Romantic Hellenism, both of which are inextricably connected. He seizes on an aspect of philosophy according to Schelling, that natural objects are not merely dead things, but are "living potentialities," and "vibrant objects." In the first chapter, Davis presents a scene in which Hyperion, the hero of Hölderlin's eponymous novel, stands atop the Acrocorinth and ponders how division constitutes human self-consciousness, while he contemplates (in a distracted state of mind, which Hyperion describes as being "lost in the wide blue") how one might achieve a merging of the self with the all. Davis then explores what Hölderlin meant by "intellectual intuition" in reclaiming the original unity (the elusive "one with all") that he and a host of other Romantics sought; instrumental in forming this idea was his participation in a secret philosophical club formed by the three fellow students at the Tübinger Stift (with Schelling and Hegel), whose Greek motto "Hen Kai Pan" (one and everything) gave direction to their early thought. Next, Davis guides us through aspects of Schelling's Naturphilosophie and its connections with Goethe's own neoclassical aesthetics, set against the background of the personal and intellectual relationship between the two. Most importantly, Davis highlights the catalytic function each served for the other's thinking regarding the Weltseele (world-soul), which, they believed, inhabits and animates the entire cosmos. In the fourth chapter, which focuses on aesthetic and erotic intuition, Davis shifts to more material concerns. Here he elaborates the literary response to Schelling's realization that the return to wholeness and oneness cannot merely be an intellectual exercise, but must be concretized in order to be truly [End Page 358] successful. The aesthetic object must become substantial and physical, which can only be accomplished through art imbued with elements of the erotic, amounting to a return to the Hellenistic ideal of the lost classical age. As a summary of this process, Davis compares Hölderlin's Hyperion with a scene from Percy Shelley's Epipsychidion, against the backdrop of the space delimited in the two works: Greek islands on which one experiences a conjoining of "poetry, nature philosophy, aesthetics, and sex," a conversion of intellectual intuition into aesthetic-erotic intuition. He maintains that...

Orpheus's Civilising Song, or, the Politics of Voice in Late Enlightenment Italy

AbstractThis article explores new conceptions of voice in late eighteenth-century Italy as expressed in discourses connected with opera reform. Inspired by the convergence of Enlightenment epistemologies of feeling and neoclassical aesthetics, certain progressive singers and literati sought to rebrand the singing voice as an agent of moral and political edification. Here, this ideology-laden project is traced through two conflicting representations of singer-poets, both of whom wield the power of lyric song to achieve political ends. First, the article unpacks Giuseppe Millico's narrative of his performance as Gluck's Orfeo (published in Naples in 1782), in which the singer argues for voice as audible interiority and, as such, a warrant of political subjectivity. It then turns to a reading of Gastone della Torre di Rezzonico's libretto for Giuseppe Sarti's dramma per musicaAlessandro e Timoteo(Parma, 1782), in which voice transforms into an instrument of anti-absolutist critique. The article concludes by considering how these two modes of voice were imagined, together, as capable of revivifying Italian culture.

‘Konturen’ and ‘Trübungen’: Der Tod in Venedig and Rilke’s ‘Dritte Elegie’

ABSTRACTThis article compares two canonical works of modern German literature completed in 1912–13: Thomas Mann’s Der Tod in Venedig and the third of Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duineser Elegien. It uses the metaphors of visual art suggested by Rilke in his criticism of Mann’s novella to develop a reading based on the idea of the ‘contour’ and on poetic form, spanning travel and place, literary genre, sexuality and psychoanalysis, as well as antecedents in classical and neoclassical aesthetics and philosophy. This is not a historicist approach nor one that belongs to reception studies, but rather a reconstruction of the German-speaking cultural landscape in the first decades of the twentieth century and its bearing upon Rilke and Mann.

Glaura y Cariolano, Una ópera neoclásica de Ignacio García Malo

With the intention of emulating Italian operas, Garcia Malo decided in 1791 to write one of these pieces in Spanish, in order to show that the richness and harmony of this language was comparable to that of any other foreign language, and in the hope that opera similar to Italian opera would be created in the future. Together with this patriotic intention was the aim of acclaiming Spanish splendour in America, and, through that, informing the audience of the work about the virtues of the Hispanic character, at a time in which some were worried about the future political stability of the overseas colonies. Garcia Malo adapted the text entirely to neoclassical aesthetics, so that the message would more efficiently leave a mark on the spectator. As regards the music, composed by Jose Lidon, it most likely contributed to reinforcing in the listener the effect of reliving and singing the past glory of Spain.

Branding the Revival of Knowledge

In 1759, a patented University Press was established in Leuven. This article examines the historical context in which the idea of a university press took root. It describes into more detail the roles played by the university librarian Corneille-Francois Nelis and by the head of the Privy Council in Brussels, Patrice-Francois de Neny. Their correspondence proves that the librarian in particular considered the new press as an instrument to improve the quality of academic publishing, not least by paying the utmost attention to the typographic design of the press’s publications. Nelis introduced neoclassical aesthetics in the typographical world of the southern Low Countries. His views call to mind the concept of branding. The article then explores how this modern concept can be used to better understand the press’s marketing strategy during its first years, and to explain why it failed to realize the ambitions of its founders.

Fashioning the Deviant Male Body in Tomás de Iriarte’s El señorito mimado o la mala educación

TOMAS de Marte (1750-1791), most often celebrated for his imaginative and innovative treatment of fable in his Fabulas literarias (1782), was also a cosmopolitan playwright, satirist and translator who was a constituent member of Madrid's artistic and literary scene during second half of eighteenth century along with his contemporaries Jose Cadalso, Leandro Fernandez de Moratin, Ramon de la Cruz, and Francisco de Goya. (1) His original comedies--such as El senorito mimado o la mala educacion (1787) and La senorita malcriada (1788)--were immediately recognized and well received for their finely tuned and versified representations of Spanish society, as well as for their incorporation of neoclassical aesthetics and theatrical reforms. (2) In El senorito mimado, which enjoyed a particularly thunderous reception (Cox 240) upon its first staging in 1788, Iriarte lampoons improper and insubstantial education of Madrid's idle youth exemplified by foppish Don Mariano. (3) In most recent analyses of comedy, critics have focused on topics ranging from its aesthetic, historical, and political context (Andioc, Sebold), Iriarte's literary influences (Cox), as well as its treatment of themes of letter writing (Fueger) and marriage (McCallahan). However, role of bodily comportment and dress in fashioning of Mariano's deviant masculine character has yet to be explored, despite visibility Iriarte gives to these subjects in his comedy. (4) In this article, I will highlight a new context in which to read Iriarte's El senorito mimado o la mala educacion. In comedy, Mariano's characteristic indeterminacy and transgressive attitudes vis-a-vis hegemonic figures of patriarchal authority--embodied by his virtuous uncle Don Cristobal--are sartorially coded, and problematize facile categorization and diagnosis of his deviant attributes and behavior. Throughout El senorito mimado, Mariano operates as an agent of class transvestism by donning modish signifiers of both petimetre--an upper-class fop--and majo--a working-class representative of Spanish tradition or casticismo, blending and confusing both types and their respective paradigms of dress. This confusion of otherwise distinctive male garments highlights permeability of terms and types to which they refer, along with porous nature of social boundaries at turn of century. Indeed, concomitant visual markers associated with petimetre (morning suits, canes, watches) and majo (capes, broad hats), along with types themselves, were in constant flux throughout eighteenth century in Spain. In providing a new lens through which to analyze Iriarte's comedy, I argue that frequent references to items of male fashion index eighteenth-century anxieties concerning appropriate masculine behavior and bodily comportment, along with growing instability of recognizable social hierarchies and modes of representation and signification. It should be emphasized that such anxieties were rendered possible by the unstable, precarious position of masculinity in societies that long held masculine to be a natural, stable marker of superiority over feminine (Penrose, Masculinity 9). Sartorial signifiers in El senorito mimado--especially those indicated by stage directions--and contemporaneous literary texts and discourses will confirm and give contour to these underlying tensions concerning potential threat of subversive masculinities that disrupt models of gentlemanly, virtuous masculinity (hombria de bien) promoted by eighteenth-century moralists like Iriarte. In other words, deviant masculinity --one that distorts and evades ideal forms embodied by hombre de bien--manifests itself in Iriarte's play as a class transvestism in which protagonist oscillates and shifts between sartorial markers of sexually deviant petimetre and socially marginalized, working-class majo. The comedy's title refers to Mariano's--el senorito's--inchoate masculinity: he is neither a child nor an adult. …

Milton Among the Puritans: The Case for Historical Revisionism

Reviewed by: Milton Among the Puritans: The Case for Historical Revisionism Katherine Romack (bio) Catherine Gimelli Martin . Milton Among the Puritans: The Case for Historical Revisionism. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2010. 360 + xvi pages. $99.95. Catherine Gimelli Martin opens her Milton Among the Puritans: The Case for Historical Revisionism with an offensive against the Whiggish tendencies of contemporary Milton studies, a subfield she characterizes as "exceptional" in its ignorance of the now "mainstream" revisionism informing early modern historiography (xiii). Framing her study as a corrective, Martin pointedly asserts, "contrary to long-standing assumptions still held widely in the academic community, Milton was not a puritan" (xi). Distancing Milton from his puritan [End Page 146] contemporaries, Martin situates him in the liberal theological tradition that gave rise to religious rationalism and modern Unitarianism and argues that Milton's art and philosophy, especially later in life, are better compared to the comprehensive, ecumenical, and rationalist thinking of the Anglican Latitudinarians than to the puritans (12). The book is divided into two parts. The first half of the book surveys revisionist contributions to seventeenth-century historiography and situates Milton in contexts that question the easy association of Milton with puritanism. Her introduction, "Carlyle's Ghost," deftly covers revisionist accounts of the "multiple causes and effects of the 'Great Rebellion'" (26) from Conrad Russell to Patrick Collinson. Martin moves on, in subsequent chapters, to examine the "non-puritanical" and Baconian aspects of Milton's early poetry and prose writing. She pits the puritans against rationalist and secular approaches to "law, education, science, rhetoric and the ministry" (26), anchoring Milton firmly to the latter. Part II "traces the effects of these mainly secular-rationalist influences (including classical republicanism) on Milton's major poems" (26). Her afterword explores Milton's "posthumous contribution" to modern "secular theories of toleration" (27). Despite her affirmation of the relevance and indispensability of the term "puritan" for Milton studies, Martin's somewhat murky and selective deployment of the term detracts greatly from the book (32-33). Her merging of a wide array of religious dissenters under the broad label of "puritan," a term that she not so subtly equates with anti-intellectual Calvinist zealotry, does more to obscure than to clarify Milton's place "among" but not "of " the puritans (21). Dissenters as disparate as Baptists, Fifth Monarchists, Levellers, and Quakers are yoked together and reduced to a "godly" common denominator throughout much of the book. Also, the privileged place of the Socinians in Martin's account is accomplished only by downplaying the radical piety and congregational impulses of Socinians like John Biddle, whose 1655 imprisonment for blasphemy, for example, was opposed most strongly by Henry Vane, a figure who is consistently identified with "the godly" by Martin (153; 284). The understanding of puritans advanced by her book is inferior to that of other revisionist scholars such as Nicholas Tyacke who, following the work of Christina Garrett, has carefully traced the genealogy of puritanism back to the Marian exiles. Contra Martin, Tyacke, recognizing the diversity of puritan thought, documents a progressive broadening of the field of their thought and action over time and has recently asserted that Milton's arguments [End Page 147] for liberty, in fact, "exemplify . . . the puritan paradigm of English politics" (550). Tyacke documents a long history of puritan engagements with secular politics and rejects "misleadingly narrow" religious definitions that "ignore the existence of a much more all-embracing puritan political vision" (527). The chapters in Part II are very strong for what they are: a close reading of the Baconian and secular aspects of the cosmology and anthropology of Paradise Lost, an interpretation of Paradise Regained that provocatively and persuasively critiques scholarship that "isolates" Milton from the dominant neoclassical aesthetics of the day, and an argument for classifying Samson Agonistes as a "classical republican" tragedy (279). These chapters offer a more nuanced survey of Milton's writings and to some extent qualify the strident anti-puritan polemic that structures the first two hundred pages of the book. The opening chapter of Part II offers a survey of "secular resources" that illuminate the "philosophical, cosmological and anthropological framework" (215) of Paradise Lost. Martin clearly states that her chapter is...

Goodness, beauty, and the aesthetics of discipline in Timothy Dwight's landscapes

Timothy Dwight, eighth President of Yale, traveled widely in the Northeast for more than 20 years before his death in 1817. His observations were posthumously published as Travels in New England and New York. For all its loose organization, pomposity and ‘droning sameness’ of style, the text reveals an extraordinary range of observation and a deep awareness of literary and philosophical approaches to landscape. In characteristically eighteenth-century fashion, he sees the aesthetic and the moral as inextricably linked. Travels constitutes a deeply tendentious and supremely ideological reading of landscape as Dwight seeks to refute the claims of condescending Europeans and reveal the supremacy of New England religion and culture, as guaranteed by freehold land and the properly regulated worship of an established church. Dwight's landscape ideal symbolically controls potentially irreligious and unruly people using several inflections of neoclassical visual aesthetics, including the framing and spatial bounding of the picturesque and the insertion of elite leaders in country seats and cities, marked off by signs of architecture and refinement. This fusion of the moral and the aesthetic amounts to an aesthetic disciplining of the landscape. In Dwight's text we also glimpse a distinctly Calvinist and Federalist landscape ideal, which differs in some ways from the symbolic landscape of agrarian republicanism.

Stravinski et ses exégètes (1910-1940) by Valérie Dufour (review)

!52 SEER, 86, I, 2008 career, ensure his survival, and allow his prolific and poetic painting to achieve success, and through it to address the world. On the cover of thisbook Chagall's SelfPortraitwith SevenFingers shows the painter working fastwith Paris through thewindow but Russia in his mind. He signed inHebrew at the top and French-style lower right. When Chagall was latermade responsible for art in Soviet Vitebsk, he signed his Cubist Landscape (p. 16) again and again in a stream of letteringfalling like raindrops on a window pane, first in Hebrew then Russian, French and again in Russian, a list of his identities in his early life, in St Petersburg, in Paris and in Soviet Russia where he was deeply committed to the revival of Jewish Theatre. Many years later he was buried in a Christian cemetery at St-Paul-de-Vence in France. For Moyshe Shagal/Marc Chagall, as Harshav reveals it in this invaluable source book, the issue of identitywas never far away. Courtauld Instituteof Art,London John Milner Dufour, Val?rie. Stravinskiet ses ex?g?tes (igio-iQ4o). Facult? de Philosophie et Lettres, 112 ? Art. Editions de l'Universit? de Bruxelles, Brussels, 2006. 276 pp. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. 24.00 (paperback). Stravinskii's love-hate relationship with the press and his despotic attitude towards his critics became inseparable aspects of his rigorous profile, a profile that reflected his aesthetic ideals of order, control and objectivity. It is this complex relationship and the interactionwith some of his critics thatDufour investigates in her book, focusing not on the reception, but on the exegesis of Stravinskii's output by various intellectuals during theyears 1910 to 1940.The former, she explains, involved occasional reviews of his music, while the latter refers to systematic attempts to grasp and interpret the Stravinskii 'phenom enon' based on each writer's personal set of ideas. Dufour studies texts by a number of 'exegetes' from several countries (Russia, USSR, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy and England), thus shedding light on their dialectical exchanges with the composer. No less than twenty cases of critics are explored whose connection and degree of proximity to Stravinskii varied substantially, ranging from opposition (Andrei Rimskii-Korsakov), to autonomy (Boris Asafev, Boris de Shletser), to close friendship and collaboration (Andr? Schaeffner, Charles-Albert Cingria, Petr Suvchinskii, Artur Lure). To be sure, Dufour is not the firstmusicologist to expose Stravinskii's relationship with his critics. In fact, the bottom line of her argument is his previously acknowledged desire for complete control over his image which, forDufour, renders him an incarnation of themedia epoch inwhich he lived. Yet, her study is a valuable contribution to understanding not only this specific issue, but also Stravinskii's neoclassicism more broadly. By analysing a vast number of contemporaneous articles and books ? many of them long overlooked ? by all thewriters she could correlate with Stravinskii, Dufour establishes thathis involvement in criticism of his production was much more systematic than formerly thought. On a second level, she demonstrates how REVIEWS IOS Stravinskii's interactionwith some of those intellectuals,many ofwhom acted as his propagandists, actually influenced his neoclassical aesthetics. She thus contextualizes and puts in perspective some of Stravinskii's neoclassical ideals and concepts. The strongest point of her research is undoubtedly the examina tion of hitherto unpublished archival sources, which she uses, for instance, to confirm Suvchinskii's key role in the composition of Stravinskii's Poetics of Music. Dufour does not hesitate to make some bold statements in her book. She claims, for example, that Robert Craft minimized the importance of Suvchinskii for Stravinskii, because the twomen played a very similar role in the composer's life (pp. 51, 57). She also makes some original associations, such as her interpretation of Lur'e's 'Neogothic and Neoclassic' as a response to Schoenberg's mocking Stravinskii's neoclassicism (pp. 93-97). However, on thewhole, the reader will probably feel overwhelmed by the amount of infor mation presented; at times, the book admittedly reads like a reference book. Dufour's investigation would have benefited from the examination of fewer case studies on those intellectualswho interactedmore closelywith Stravinskii, and a more thorough analysis of their texts and thought...

From Tragicomedy to Epic: The Court Ballets of Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin

It was customary in the seventeenth century to assimilate court ballet with drama, as both art forms were seen to strive for a common aim: the imitation or representation of nature. However, critics were also keen to point out their essential differences, for, unlike tragedy, ballet disregarded the rules of neo-classical aesthetics and its only concern seemed to be to please and to entertain. This was particularly evident in the court ballets written by Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin between 1639 and 1641. Unsurprisingly, they were singled out for special criticism by theorists of the ballet, who highlighted their dramatic shortcomings, and failed to see that they constituted another form of dramatic aesthetics, which was conspicuous precisely because of its emancipation from the strictures of Aristotelian theory. It could be said that the ballets of Desmarets had all the hallmarks of contemporary tragicomedy: irregularity of construction, diversity of action, disregard for the unity of tone, etc., but in adapting the principles of this new aesthetics to the ballet, Desmarets ran the risk of transgressing the boundaries of tragicomedy and even of drama, approaching a genre which was no longer dramatic but narrative, i.e. epic poetry.

From Tragicomedy to Epic: The Court Ballets of Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin

It was customary in the seventeenth century to assimilate court ballet with drama, as both art forms were seen to strive for a common aim: the imitation or representation of nature. However, critics were also keen to point out their essential differences, for, unlike tragedy, ballet disregarded the rules of neo-classical aesthetics and its only concern seemed to be to please and to entertain. This was particularly evident in the court ballets written by Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin between 1639 and 1641. Unsurprisingly, they were singled out for special criticism by theorists of the ballet, who highlighted their dramatic shortcomings, and failed to see that they constituted another form of dramatic aesthetics, which was conspicuous precisely because of its emancipation from the strictures of Aristotelian theory. It could be said that the ballets of Desmarets had all the hallmarks of contemporary tragicomedy: irregularity of construction, diversity of action, disregard for the unity of tone, etc., but in adapting the principles of this new aesthetics to the ballet, Desmarets ran the risk of transgressing the boundaries of tragicomedy and even of drama, approaching a genre which was no longer dramatic but narrative, i.e. epic poetry.

On the Music of Stefan Wolpe: Essays and Recollections (review)

On the Music of Stefan Wolpe: Essays and Recollections. Edited by Austin Clarkson. (Dimension & Diversity, no. 6.) Hillsdale, NY: Pendragon Press, 2003. [xii, 371 p. ISBN 1-57647-063-0. $42.] Index, notes, illustrations, catalog, discography, compact disc. In the last decade of his compositional career, Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972) favored two-movement forms for his music. The importance of these large-scale formal plans to the composer's conception is ably and bluntly demonstrated by the titles of many of these works: consider, for example, In Two Parts for Six Players and Piece in Two Parts for Violin Alone, both of which are featured on the compact disc included with this volume. But these compositions have formal implications well beyond the classical norms of contrast in tempo, style, and timbre. In particular, Wolpe frequently reuses or recasts iconic materials from one movement to another, creating a network of similarities and relationships that operates independently of (and in consort with) the traditional contrasts. The experience of reading this nearcentennial collection of essays bears a striking parallel to the unfolding of one of these late compositions. The volume's formal organization divides the contributions into two sections-Engagements and Makings-that represent a sort of post-modern gloss on the traditional Man-and-Music composer biography. Stretching across and within these two parts is a complex web of associations, created by repeated references to composers, philosophers, and compositions that serve as guideposts for the authors in their explorations. That these sites of navigation are widely disparate (the titles of the essays alone invoke such diverse figures as Busoni, Eisler, Vogel, Cage, Adorno, Satie, Varese, and Babbitt) underscores the challenge of situating Wolpe in the ever-changing contemporary landscape. The two-part structure also pays homage to the Hegelian roots of Wolpe's philosophical writings. Indeed, many of the authors (especially in the first section) invoke syntheses of varied poles of cultures, philosophies, and compositional styles to serve as lenses for their examinations. Pairs of essays also often bring about a similar sort of aggregate effect, creating a more nuanced picture through the dialectic combination of their contrasting views on substantially similar topics. The climax of the collection comes at the beginning of the second part, with essays by Martin Zenck and David Holzman that both involve Wolpe's monumental Battle Piece for piano. Zenck, a musicologist, uses neoclassicism and serialism as foils for several piano works from the 1930s and 1940s. Unusually for this volume, Zenck explicitly disavows any suggestion that Wolpe represents a synthesis of these isms (p. 175). An initial clue lies in the title: Beyond Neoclassicism and Dodecaphony: Wolpe's Third Way. Pianist Holzman deals with the physical and interpretive challenges of Battle Piece, contrasting his own performances and recordings with those of David Tudor (renditions of Battle Piece by both artists are on the accompanying compact disc). Holzman's consideration of the large-scale impact of the differences between his and Tudor's interpretations is especially engaging and expert. The reuse and development of iconic materials figures prominently in both authors' treatments. For Zenck, it facilitates the creation of formal maps, an ostensibly serial echo of neoclassical aesthetics. The tonal implications (or lack thereof) of these materials also form a navigable layer, which Zenck imbues with almost narrative qualities. Tonality itself becomes a character whose accretions and denials find resonance with the anti-war program intended by the composition's title. For Holzman, these recastings (he borrows the term interpolations from Tudor) represent an opportunity for romantic memory, a dramatic turn of almost theatrical quality. He contrasts this with Tudor's approach, in which the interpolations are interruptions, an aggregate effect lying outside the erstwhile flow of the musical surface. …