Wedding Festivities Research Articles

Kiamat Dance: A Reflection of Local Wisdom in Kuripan Village, South Lampung, Indonesia

The Kiamat Dance is the closing dance of the ruwah or traditional wedding of the White Blood Queendom (Keratuan Darah Putih) for seven days and seven nights, known as nuhot. The Kiamat Dance, with its history rooted in the traditions of the White Blood Queendom, holds significant cultural and social value. As the closing dance of the ruwah, this dance symbolizes the culmination of the wedding festivities and marks the beginning of a new chapter in the lives of the newlyweds. The presence of this dance in various events beyond weddings highlights its versatility and adaptability, reflecting its enduring appeal and relevance in contemporary society. Through its rich symbolism and intricate movements, the Kiamat Dance embodies the core values and beliefs of the White Blood Queendom, serving as a testament to the community's cultural heritage and identity. This research aimed to describe the history, development, and local wisdom in the Kiamat Dance from Kuripan Village, South Lampung. This research employed a qualitative approach to produce descriptive data. The underlying theory used in this study was the behavioristic theory. Data collection techniques involved field observation, interviews, and documentation. The results showed that the art of the Kiamat Dance is the closing dance of the ruwah, a series of events for seven days and seven nights at the wedding in the White Blood Queendom. The Kiamat Dance is present on the last night as a closing dance. This dance was originally only found in the wedding ceremony of descendants of the White Blood Queendom. Still, almost every event has this dance nowadays, both in welcoming special guests and celebrating holidays. The values in this dance include religious, social, aesthetic, and educational values.

A “Centaur” in Music and Genre: G. F. Handel's Parnasso in festa for Princess Anne's Wedding

AbstractParnasso in festa (HWV 73, 1734), George Frideric Handel's festa teatrale, composed for the wedding festivities of his royal pupil Princess Anne, is a neglected piece within his oeuvre, mostly because of its hybrid nature. The fact that a considerable portion of the work was adapted from the Oxford oratorio Athalia ought not to cloud our appreciation of the newly-composed parts, since this appropriation is best understood as an act of Athalia's “repatriation” to its patrons. As a musical “centaur,” Parnasso shows intriguing multi-layered ambiguities. Was the Janus-faced Handel (Apollo/Orpheus) lamenting the departure of his favorite, or was this a bitter-sweet celebration of an unwanted marriage? Dramatically, the focus falls on Apollo's and Orpheus's loss of their loved ones, but how does this fit together with the massive vocal domain of Carestini (Apollo) and Strada (Clio)? On the vocal side, Carestini was given the most virtuosic numbers, resulting in the musical polarization of the main roles. Anna Maria Strada, as a Muse, represented the pastoral side, while Carlo Scalzi (Orfeo) added plaintive pathetic arias to the palette. Nevertheless, harmonizing points both in Carestini's and Strada's musical style and vocal tone formed a “thread” that helped sew the diverse parts of the Parnasso-centaur together.

Fostering Kaisertreue in the Austrian Empire: Literature on the Occasion of the Marriage of Emperor Francis Josef (1854)

This article explores poems devoted to the dynastic festivities of the ruling House of Habsburg as one of the multiple instruments of fostering loyalty and dynastic patriotism, primarily in in-school youth who were regarded as future citizens of the Austrian Empire. The concepts of dynastic patriotism, Kaisertreue (literally, faithfulness to the emperor), Huldigungsschriften (literally, homage writings), the Habsburg myth, pietas Austriaca, and Habsburg propaganda provide the theoretical and methodological basis of the research. The author refers to three poems devoted to the wedding festivities of Emperor Francis Joseph and Elizabeth of Bavaria in 1854. Two of them — one of which is written in Hungarian and the other in German — are examples of the panegyric ode and were authored by schoolteachers. The third one is a moral poem, easy to understand, with a heartwarming storyline. All the three poems in question are quite ordinary in terms of literary and artistic merit. Their choice is motivated by the author’s desire to demonstrate through those Huldigungsschriften her hypothesis that the Habsburg myth which emphasised the virtues and all-encompassing benevolence of the Habsburg rulers was being transmitted in various formats and different languages to in-school youth in the lands of the Austrian monarchy to foster loyalty and dynastic patriotism. Rather than studying the three writings for their literary and artistic merit, the article mainly focuses on discussing this kind of poetry as a historical phenomenon and an instrument of propaganda which was aimed at developing a loyal and faithful population of the polyethnic and multicultural Habsburg Empire.

The Instrumentalization of Courtly Privacy in the Context of the Wedding Celebrations of Emperor Leopold I in 1676

According to the wishes of Pope Innocent XI Odescalchi and his representative at the imperial court, Francesco Buonvisi (1675–1689), Leopold I married the candidate they favored: Eleonora Magdalena of Palatinate-Neuburg. The emperor’s third wedding and the subsequent wedding festivities were held in Passau on December 14, 1676 in an absolutely private manner and without the intervention of the secular diplomats or the apostolic nuncio. The private staging of the sposalizio contrasts not only with the norms of the traditions of the imperial court with regards to ceremony, but also with the public staging of the emperor’s two previous weddings. Against this background, this article considers the possible functions that can be attributed to the private in this context and how the preferential treatment of the house of “Pfalz-Neuburg” can be interpreted in relation to the ceremonial norms of the imperial court. In this regard, the nunciature’s correspondence and their manifold interconnections thus represent essential sources which shed light on the mechanisms of “privacy” in diplomacy, as well as the shifting importance and meanings of the ceremonial norms of the imperial court.

The Practice of Financial Data Collection in the “Talitihan/Gantangan” Tradition in Wedding Receptions in Gantar District According to Islamic Law

This article presents the findings of a study on the financial data gathering practiced by the gantangan people in rural Gantar District when hosting wedding festivities. This research was conducted utilizing a qualitative research method with a descriptive phenomenological approach that use life experience as a tool to better understand socio-culture by gathering data through observations, interviews, and recording, which is then evaluated to reach conclusions. The financial data collection mechanism has both advantages and disadvantages. An advantage is our willingness to help our fellow humans, while the disadvantages are what cause some individuals to complain about this talitihan/gantangan tradition, i.e. when the individual in question is not present but must still pay. The findings of the study indicate that people of Babakan Plasah Village, Gantar District, collect financial data on the talitihan/gantangan tradition as part of the celebrations' execution. No particular record exists for this record. The use of this custom is consistent with Islamic law, as the underlying principle promotes a spirit of assistance in conformity with Islamic principles.

A fashionable wedding in Dakar, Senegal

A young bride and groom, Zeynab Dieng (25) and Abdoulaye Ly (28), asked me to photograph their Muslim/Peulh wedding festivities in Dakar, Senegal. Dakarois wedding celebrations centre around the bride, who demonstrates her dignity and savoir faire as a new matron by appearing in a succession of fashionable outfits. Within the Senegalese fashion system, these outfits fall into the style categories labelled ‘ethnic’, ‘pan-African’ and ‘European’. Among the many Senegalese weddings that I have attended and photographed, the wedding of Abdoulaye and Zeynab was startlingly original in its fashions and its rituals. Abdoulaye, Zeynab and their siblings performed a ceremony of freedom on their own terms. My study addresses interwoven processes of colonization/decolonization. The first concerns my own far-from-complete process of attempting to decolonize my mind and practice. The second process concerns the refusing-to-die colonial dichotomy of ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’ with respect to fashion and weddings. Instead of applying colonial labels to the fashions and the wedding, I try to see these through the lens of the Dakarois youth imaginary. How do Zeynab, Abdoulaye and their contemporaries interpret the decolonizing/neo-colonizing forces they navigate in creating fashions and in shaping their own lives?

A VISION OF THE NEW JERUSALEM: THE TEXT OF STRIGGIO’S ECCE BEATAM LUCEM

Striggio’s forty-part motet Ecce beatam lucem survives in a unique manuscript source, dated 1587, in the Ratsschulbibliothek in Zwickau. Its text, first published in 1595, formed part of a Pindaric ode written by the neo-Latin poet and Calvinist Paul Schede Melissus (1539–1602). A closer consideration of Melissus’ biography indicates that he probably wrote it after 1575, long after the wedding festivities with which the motet has habitually been associated (Florence, 1565; Munich, 1568). Its subject matter – a Calvinist vision of the New Jerusalem – also makes it an unlikely wedding text and inappropriate for Catholic festivities. Rather, it was probably used as the text of a contrafactum, for an as yet unidentified occasion, with which Striggio himself had little or no connection.

Ritual, Law, and Faction at the Early Stuart Court: Chapman’s Memorable Maske and the Palatine Wedding

The court wedding festivities for the marriage of Frederick, the Elector Palatine, and Princess Elizabeth Stuart in 1613 included the performance of ‘Memorable Masque’ by George Chapman. Chapman’s masque provides a window into the factional ideological conflicts of the early Jacobean court and particularly the contested nature of James’s ‘absolute’ authority in relation to the law. While Chapman’s presentation superficially appeared to support the King’s assertion that royal authority is above the law, the pliability of the masque form allowed for him to endorse a militant foreign policy position at odds with the King’s and even more subtly critique James’s absolutist view of royal authority. More broadly, this performance demonstrates some of the ways court ceremonial and festive occasions could be manipulated for political and ideological purposes.

Общее и особенное в свадебных обычаях потомков сибирских старожилов Притомья во второй половине XX века (по материалам полевых исследований 2018–2021 годов)

In connection with the processes of transformation and active intercultural communications in the second half of the 20th century in Pritomye, the article raises the problem of the relevance of wedding customs as ethno-cultural markers. Based on materials collected in ethnographic expeditions 2018-2021 in the Mariinsky, Chebulinsky, and Tyazhinsky Districts of the Kemerovo Region, wedding customs of the 1950s-1970s period of the rural population of Pritomye who define themselves as descendants of the Siberian old-timers, are analyzed. As a result of the research, general and specific features of wedding traditions are identified. The structure of the wedding scenario, including matchmaking, redemption, and the first wedding day in the groom’s house and the second wedding day in the bride’s house, became generally accepted for the old-time weddings in various villages of the Tom region in the second half of the 20th century. Also generally accepted among the descendants of the old-time population customs were the traditions of giving pancakes on the first/second day of the wedding festivities and the tradition of sweeping up the litter by the bride on the second day of the wedding. The custom of “extinguishing ovin” in its various variations, stealing the bride, walking mummers and smearing faces with soot were less widespread. Rare among the old-timer customs were the parents of young people riding on sleds, when the wedding guests were harnessed in the village of Malopeschanka in the Mariinsky District. Such customs as “breeding” of families, cooking of chicken by a young wife on a campfire, walking of young people for water, recorded in the village of Bolshaya Pokrovka in the Tyazhinsky District, turned out to be isolated. Some of the customs recorded by the author are similar to the wedding customs and rituals of the Russian settlers of the Tom region, which suggests that the cause of the differences within the old-timer groups were mutual cultural contacts between the settlers and old-timers. The findings suggest that wedding customs can act as ethno-cultural markers, but necessarily taking into account the factor of intercultural interaction specific to Western Siberia.

Instrumentalists and Renaissance Culture, 1420–1600: Players of Function and Fantasy by Victor Coelho and Keith Polk

Reviewed by: Instrumentalists and Renaissance Culture, 1420–1600: Players of Function and Fantasy by Victor Coelho and Keith Polk Michael Eisenberg Instrumentalists and Renaissance Culture, 1420–1600: Players of Function and Fantasy. By Victor Coelho and Keith Polk. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016. [xiv, 331 p. ISBN 9781107145801 (hardback), $99.99; ISBN 9781316573105 (e-book), varies.] Illustrations, bibliography, index of primary sources, general index. In this broad treatment of Renaissance instrumental culture, Victor Coelho and Keith Polk provide a rich and variegated picture of how instrumentalists created, functioned, and lived. Specific case studies of individual Renaissance instrumentalists and events serve to illustrate trends in instrumental practice during the long Renaissance. By focusing on the agency and lives of actual musicians and events, the authors provide an immediate context for interpreting the role instrumental music played in Renaissance musical life. This study considers discrete aspects of instrumental music making, including the impact of individual patrons and the protocols of patronage at large, instrumental music's role in courtly and civic festivities, normative pedagogical and notational practices, and, in the last chapter, a survey of diverse organological categories that furnishes data about a range of instruments, accompanied by a compendium of iconographical images. Throughout the work, socio-economic topics, such as the constitution of guilds, procedural practices with apprenticeships, general pedagogical norms, and theoretical training (pp. 199–204 passim) bolster the description of players' education, pedagogical methodologies, and general work behavior as collective institutionalized communities. These discussions even extend to offering some specific figures—numbers culled from an array of secondary sources—regarding wages, benefits, apprenticeship enrollment, instrument building, and courtly and private acquisition of these instruments. The authors synthesize archival and primary-source work from Howard Mayer Brown, David Fallows, Joshua Rifkin, Reinhard Strohm, and others, in order to plot out general stylistic, repertorial, and socio-economic paths and overall development for instrumental practice. Utilizing this disparate data, Coelho and Polk also track the role of the instrumentalist through the Renaissance, which evolved from the status of mere piffaro to the esteemed rank of "musician." The first chapter opens with an examination of patronage networks, commissions, and sources of compensation as divided between courtly, ecclesiastical, civic, and private spheres. Within this frame, the authors foreground the Burgundian court of Philip the Good with its "imperative of 'image'" (p. 19) and prestige, the Ferrarese court of Ercole d'Este, the court of Henry VIII, and the Habsburg courts of Maximilian I and Charles V. Numbers citing overall instrumental forces and instrumental compositions as well as musicians documented in the orbit of a given court [End Page 609] draft a picture of courtly musical life that collates the respective courts' predilections and compositional tastes and reveals a strategy of competitive courtly magnificence. Beginning with fifteenth-century codices containing music composed or arranged for instruments per se, including the earliest survival of written keyboard music in Faenza, the Buxheimer Orgelbuch, and the Casanatense canzoniere (possibly owned by Isabella d'Este), the second chapter embarks on an exhaustive comparison of available sources for Renaissance instrumental music. The discussion also includes a range of printed sources such as the 1507 Ottaviano Petrucci print of Francesco Spinacino's lute tablature and Claudio Merulo's Ricercari d'intavolatura d'organo (1567). The third chapter deals with professional and amateur players' lives, education, and work conditions. During the ensuing discussion of musical training through the apprenticeship ranks, Coelho and Polk point out the disjunction between master players with and without court appointments, and the resultant dilemma for aspiring students who wished to engage teachers who might offer lucrative placements for work but in addition would be sufficiently accessible (or even present). The following chapter looks at music's function within festivals, ritual, and the theater. This treatment of instrumental music in the context of celebration and ceremony collates inscriptional accounts from events like the renowned Medici wedding festivities, Maximilian I of Habsburg's triumphal if compulsory entry ceremony into Bruges, and various other seasonal civic and ecclesiastical processions. This frame serves as an opportunity for assessing how instrumental and repertorial choices reflected status and purpose and how these events constructed the politics and tone of civic and courtly life...

“Que las riquezas del mundo parecian estar alli cifradas”: Catherine of Braganza’s Wedding Festivities in the Context of the Portuguese Restoration (1661-1662)

The aim of this paper is to study Catherine of Braganza’s wedding festivities and to frame them in the historical context of the dissolution of the Spanish-Portuguese Union in 1640. In order to better understand one of the models that served as inspiration for these ceremonies, the focus of the analysis will be centred on the wedding between Maria Theresa of Spain and Louis XIV of France, as well as on the pro-Restoration discourse used by the House of Braganza.

“I’ll Find a Day to Massacre Them All”: Tamora in Titus Andronicus and Catherine de Médicis

Queen of the Goths, Empress of Rome, Machiavellian and monstrous monarch: what literary, historical, or contemporary counterparts lurk behind Shakespeare's Tamora in Titus Andronicus? Critics have associated Tamora with the many classical tyrants or vengeful women the play invokes, including Semiramis and Hecuba; with Shakespeare's current monarch, Elizabeth I, whose subjects were often threatened by the anomaly of a woman on the throne; or with the widespread cultural unease about female unruliness that marked the sixteenth century. (1) While Shakespeare had examples of transgressive female power aplenty to draw upon--whether fictive or factual--this essay argues for a contemporary female monarch as prototype for Tamora: Catherine de Medicis, who ruled as queen consort, queen regent, and queen mother of France from 1547 to 1589 and whose legendary status as archetypal wicked queen had already gathered currency in her own life time. This argument not propose a political allegory or a unidirectional correspondence of the old historicist variety, for Shakespeare was seldom that explicit or reductive. But the resemblances between Catherine's reputed monstrosity and Shakespeare's articulation of the wicked queen in Titus--for he would go on to create other variations in later plays--are striking, and suggest another example of the intertextual transmission so central to his creative process. Shakespeare, as Stephen Greenblatt puts it, does not conceal his indebtedness to literary sources, nor he conceal the input of collective beliefs, cultural practices, and early modern foundational narratives, even if the latter influences are more challenging to trace. (2) In this case, I argue that Shakespeare's Tamora powerfully evokes the Catherine de Medicis understood by popular and political discourse in late Elizabethan England as well as the Catherine de Medicis represented in two pre-texts or co-texts: Anne Dowriche's narrative poem, The French History, and Christopher Marlowe's play, The Massacre at Paris. Catherine was born in 1519 into the powerful Medicis family of Italy but came to France in 1533 as a pawn in a politically arranged marriage. When she was just fourteen, she married the Duke of Orleans, who became King Henri II of France in 1547. After Henri's untimely death in a jousting accident, Catherine ruled as queen mother and regent during the reigns of her sons Francois II (1559-60), Charles IX (1560-74), and finally Henri III (1574-89). In the last years of his reign, Henri III wrested some of the political control away from Catherine, but she nonetheless remained a dynamic force at court, and was arguably the most powerful woman in Europe for the latter half of the sixteenth century. (3) Catherine died in January of 1589; Dowriche's poem was printed later that year. Scholars date the composition of Marlowe's The Massacre at Paris between 1589 and January of 1593, its first recorded performance, and Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus anywhere from 1589 to January of 1594, when it was first performed. That these three works were written in such close proximity points to an intriguing intertextual relationship; that they were published so soon after Catherine's death suggests that her long and influential role in the politics of nearby France kept her in the forefront of English consciousness. Even more present than the collective perception of Catherine as a domineering matriarch and monarch was the most notorious event that occurred on her watch: the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre in August of 1572. The massacre took place on the occasion of the wedding festivities for Catherine's daughter, Marguerite de Valois, and Henri de Navarre, the next in line to the French throne after Catherine's sons, the Dukes of Anjou and Alencon. In marrying the Catholic Marguerite to the Protestant Navarre, Catherine hoped to end years of devastating religious conflict through a symbolic union of the two factions. …

'A WONDERFULL MONSTER BORNE IN GERMANY': HAIRY GIRLS IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLY MODERN GERMAN BOOK, COURT AND PERFORMANCE CULTURE.

Human hirsuteness, or pathological hair growth, can be symptomatic of various conditions, including genetic mutation or inheritance, and some cancers and hormonal disturbances. Modern investigations into hirsuteness were initiated by nineteenth-century German physicians. Most early modern European cases of hypertrichosis (genetically determined all-over body and facial hair) involve German-speaking parentage or patronage, and are documented in German print culture. Through the Wild Man tradition, modern historians routinely link early modern reception of historical hypertrichosis cases to issues of ethnicity without, however, recognising early modern awareness of links between temporary hirsuteness and the pathological nexus of starvation and anorexia. Here, four cases of hirsute females are reconsidered with reference to this medical perspective, and to texts and images uncovered by my current research at the Herzog August Library and German archives. One concerns an Italian girl taken to Prague in 1355 by the Holy Roman Empress, Anna von Schweidnitz. Another focuses on Madeleine and Antonietta Gonzalez, daughters of the ‘Wild Man’ of Tenerife, documented at German courts in the 1580s. The third and fourth cases consider the medieval bearded Sankt Kümmernis (also known as St Wilgefortis or St Uncumber), and the seventeenth-century Bavarian fairground performer Barbara Urslerin.Krankhafter menschlicher Hirsutismus kann aufgrund unterschiedlicher Ursachen auftreten, zu denen u.a. genetische Veränderungen und Vererbung, verschiedene Krebserkrankungen und hormonelle Störungen gehören. Die moderne Hirsutismus-Forschung ist im 19. Jh. von deutschen Forschern initiiert worden. Die meisten europäischen frühneuzeitlichen Erscheinungen von Hypertrichose (dem genetisch bedingten Haarwuchs am gesamten Körper und im Gesicht) gehen auf deutschsprachige Eltern oder Förderer zurück und sind in Deutschland in den Druck gelangt. Bei Untersuchungen des Motivs des Wilden Mannes zieht die aktuelle geschichtswissenschaftliche Forschung in der Regel Verbindungslinien zwischen der frühneuzeitlichen Wahrnehmung von Hypertrichose-Fällen und Fragen der Ethnizität, ohne jedoch zu beachten, dass in der Frühen Neuzeit die Verbindung zwischen temporärem Hirsutismus und der krankhaften Verknüpfung von Unterernährung und Anorexie bekannt war. Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden vier Fälle von an Hirsutismus erkrankten Frauen neu analysiert, unter Einbezug dieser medizinischen Perspektive und unter Beachtung von Texten und Abbildungen, die meine jüngsten Forschungen in der Herzog August Bibliothek und an deutschen Archiven ans Licht gefördert haben. Die hier betrachteten Fälle betreffen ein italienisches Mädchen, das 1355 von Anna von Schweidnitz, Kaiserin des Hl. Römischen Reichs, nach Prag gebracht wurde; Madeleine und Antonietta Gonzalez, die Töchter des ‘Wilden Manns’ von Teneriffa, die in den 1580er Jahren an deutschen Höfen bezeugt sind; die bärtige Sankt Kümmernis (Wilgefortis), und die bayerische Jahrmarktkünstlerin Barbara Urslerin.

From stage to sepulchre

There is little doubt that any list arranging the multifarious genres of early music according to the practicalities of reviving newly discovered works for modern audiences would be headed by solo keyboard pieces. The precise order of precedence in the middle ranks would be open to debate, but that opera would be relegated to the lowest place of all—far below even oratorio, let alone even the most colossally monumental of sacred liturgical pieces, or the most exorbitantly extravagant wedding festivities mounted by the Florentine court—is beyond dispute. Because it is seen as well as heard, opera has always been an extortionately expensive entertainment, as well as an ‘exotic and irrational’ one, and the manifold risks attendant on staging a full-length piece by a little-known composer, whether living or long dead, which could all too easily to be a disastrous flop, are very high. Given that the process of bringing Handel’s...

The wedding festivities of Gabriel Bethlen and Catherine of Brandenburg

The theme of the present study is the wedding festivities of Catherine of Brandenburg and Gabriel Bethlen. First, the political and diplomatic circumstances of the marriage are summarized. After the proxy marriage in Berlin the Princess Bride’s attendants participated in the greater nuptial ceremony in Kassa (now Kosice). The proxy marriage in Berlin is briefly reviewed, followed by the festivities in Kosice. After describing two major scenes from the wedding the study examines the celebrations themselves, paying particular interest to the protocol, spatial arrangement and appearance of the participants. The ceremonies are followed with an interest in the order of rank and precedence. The environment, the illustrious guests and their appearance added to the splendor of the festivities to a great extent. The entry into the city (March 1, 1626) and the solemn confirmation of the marriage oath (March 2) were key elements of the celebrations. These were followed by pageantry, banquets, fireworks, tournaments,...

The Son of Chung Wo

The Son of Chung Wo:Leslie's Weekly 16 June 1910: 592, 601, 602, 604 Sui Sin Far Click for larger view View full resolution [End Page 126] "I am very glad that he is married," said old Chung Wo, with a sigh of relief, when I, a guest at his son's wedding, came across him in an inner room, where, ensconced in a comfortable corner, he was meditatively smoking a pipe. "Ah, well, Chung," I replied, "I can't blame a man of your age and seriousness for being a little tired of festivities. This is the third day, is it not?" "Not that, not that," returned Chung; "though," with an expressive hunch of his shoulders, "I certainly do prefer the society of a quiet pipe to that of some tongue waggers." "You're a wise man," I remarked. "You have been my friend a long time," said Chung. He drew a long breath through his pipe and let it escape again in rings of smoke through his nose. "Yes, you have been my friend a long time," he repeated; "but," and he fixed his keen eyes on my face, "you have not known my secret—a secret that, whenever remembered, has made my heart as heavy as the blackest heavens and as tempestuous as the four seas in a storm." I was interested at once. I had known Chung a number of years, and knew him to be a fine fellow. I was also acquainted with his family, which consisted of his wife, two young sons and a sweet little adopted daughter—a slave, some Chinese called her; but that was not my name for one who was loved as was she by those around her. The wedding festivities I was attending were in honor of her marriage to Chung Wo's eldest son. "Because of that secret," continued Chung Wo, "I am glad that my son is married. When he has a wife and son he will no more be a 'Japanese Chinaman.'" "What do you mean by 'Japanese Chinaman'?" "Listen, and I will tell you," said Chung Wo, pointing to an easy chair, into which I subsided. Then he began: "When I first came to San Francisco, my eldest boy, Chung Tie Sang, was but seven years of age. I brought him with me. Two years after I sent for my wife, and she came with the little girl, Sie, then about four years old. My youngest [End Page 127] boys are native sons of the Golden West. At that time my business was very prosperous. Chinatown was not then like it is to-day." The old man sighed. Reminiscences of the business of old times seemed to be affecting him. "My son, Tie Sang, was a good boy in many respects, affectionate and obedient. He was also very clever, and I looked forward to keeping him with me in business, and in time making him a partner. This prospect also pleased his mother, and as we had betrothed him to little Sie, there did not seem to be any reason why our hopes should not be realized. "Now, there were quite a number of white boys around the neighborhood in which we lived, and my son would follow after them in the street, and when at home imitate their ways—unlike most Chinese children, who usually shrink from the whites and keep to their own kind. These whites were not always kind to my boy. Oftentimes they were cruel. I have seen one, without any provocation whatever, turn around and strike him on the face; and my boy would take the blow in silence, and actually sometimes offer in return a dozen or so lichees or some sweetmeat, hoping thereby to be restored to favor. "Such conduct made me feel very much ashamed, for why should a Chinese boy humbly take dirt from a white one? Does not even the white man's greatest statute say, 'All men are born free and equal'; and if that is so, are not the Chinese as respect worthy as the whites, provided they follow their consciences? So I spoke to Tie Sang and told him how the...

WHAT ARE YOU READING?

What might one read for an opera course? I teach an occasional survey that looks at opera in the context of theatre. It is intended to demystify opera for those who have no experience of it but also to explore some nooks and crannies that even fans might not know well. The general layout is chronological, but local production schedules may mean that we start out of order or that there are interruptions. My concern is that students be somewhat prepared when they go to see an opera on the syllabus. Rather than choose warhorses for their own sake, I seek out pieces that offer historical, political, or aesthetic choices that are surprising to many students. Thus, with John Adams's Nixon in China, we also read three plays about Madame Mao. With the intermezzi presented as part of the Medici wedding festivities of 1598, we read one of the plays the intermezzi graced, Bargagli's La pellegrina; for the production process, we read excerpts from James M. Saslow's wonderful 1996 book about the wedding, and so on. I change the overall content to accommodate available productions and to keep the course interesting for me and (I hope) for students. Since I keep an eye out for books that might be useful, this essay combines things I have actually read with things I will consider for the syllabus the next time I teach it.

Art, marriage & family in the Florentine Renaissance palace

Although we live in an era when vast sums of money are lavished on wedding festivities, we are not unique: in Renaissance Italy, middle- and upper-class families spent enormous amounts on marriages that were intended to establish or consolidate the status and lineage of one or both of the respective families. This lavishly illustrated book explores the social and economic background to marriage in Renaissance Florence and discusses the objects--paintings, sculptures, furniture, jewelry, clothing, and household items--associated with marriage and ongoing family life. By analyzing urban palaces and their furnishings, Jacqueline Marie Musacchio shows how families interacted with art on a daily basis. This began at marriage, when the bride brought a dowry and the groom provided the home and its furnishings. It continued with the accumulation of objects during the marriage and the birth of children. And it ended with the redistribution of these same objects at death. Through the examination of art, documents, literature, and more, this lively book traces the life cycle of the Florentine Renaissance family through the art and objects that surrounded them in their home.

Self-Interest and the Common Good in Book I of Homer's Iliad

If you recall Homer's Iliad, you will remember that the poem, as we are often told, is the story of the Trojan War. The mythological background of the war is tied to a most unlikely source - namely, "the judgment of Paris." All the gods and goddesses, according to the poets, with the exception Eris (the goddess of strife or discord), were invited to the wedding of Thetis and Peleus. When Eris tried to attend the celebration, she was turned away. To spite those who had denied her entrance, Eris tossed a golden apple inscribed with the words, "To the Fairest," amongst the goddesses attending the wedding festivities.

Nuptial Voices: The Power of Song in the 1608 Mantuan Wedding Festivities

Research Article| May 01 2005 Nuptial Voices: The Power of Song in the 1608 Mantuan Wedding Festivities Bonnie Gordon Bonnie Gordon Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (2005) 35 (2): 349–384. https://doi.org/10.1215/10829636-35-2-349 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Bonnie Gordon; Nuptial Voices: The Power of Song in the 1608 Mantuan Wedding Festivities. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 1 May 2005; 35 (2): 349–384. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/10829636-35-2-349 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsJournal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. © by Duke University Press2005 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.