E T A Hoffmann Cosmopolitanism And The Struggle For German Opera

In E. T. A. Hoffmann, Cosmopolitanism, and the Struggle for German Opera, Francien Markx investigates Hoffmann’s writings on opera, discovering in them a number of challenges to traditional narratives of aesthetic autonomy, the search for a national opera, and Hoffmann’s biography.

A stimulating new approach to understanding the relationship between music and culture in the long nineteenth century.

This book shows nineteenth-century German opera’s entanglement with national identity formation, adding a significant perspective to discussions about Wagner’s relation to German nationalism by interpreting his esthetic endeavors as a continuation of previous campaigns for the genre’s emancipation.

The Lost History of Cosmopolitanism challenges our most basic assumptions about the history of an ideal at the heart of modernity. Beginning in antiquity and continuing through to today, Leigh T.I. Penman examines how European thinkers have understood words like 'kosmopolites', 'cosmopolite', 'cosmopolitan' and its cognates. The debates over their meanings show that there has never been a single, stable cosmopolitan concept, but rather a range of concepts-sacred and secular, inclusive and exclusive-all described with the cosmopolitan vocabulary. While most scholarly attention in the history of cosmopolitanism has focussed on Greek and Roman antiquity or the Enlightenments of the 18th century, this book shows that the crucial period in the evolution of modern cosmopolitanism was early modernity. Between 1500 and 1800 philosophers, theologians, cartographers, jurists, politicians, alchemists and heretics all used this vocabulary, shedding ancient associations, and adding new ones at will. The chaos of discourses prompted thinkers to reflect on the nature of the cosmopolitan ideal, and to conceive of an abstract 'cosmopolitanism' for the first time. This meticulously researched book provides the first intellectual history of an overlooked period in the evolution of a core ideal. As such, The Lost History of Cosmopolitanism is an essential work for anyone seeking a contextualised understanding of cosmopolitanism today.

Packed full of new archival evidence that reveals the interconnected world of music theatre during the 'Classical era', this interdisciplinary study investigates key locations, genres, music, and musicians. Austin Glatthorn explores the extent to which the Holy Roman Empire delineated and networked a cultural entity that found expression through music for the German stage. He maps an extensive network of Central European theatres; reconstructs the repertoire they shared; and explores how print media, personal correspondence, and their dissemination shaped and regulated this music. He then investigates the development of German melodrama and examines how articulations of the Holy Roman Empire on the musical stage expressed imperial belonging. Glatthorn engages with the most recent historical interpretations of the Holy Roman Empire and offers quantitative, empirical analysis of repertoire supported by conventional close readings to illustrate a shared culture of music theatre that transcended traditional boundaries in music scholarship.

Cutting-edge scholarly articles on diverse aspects of Goethe and his age, featuring in this volume a special section on the poetics of space in the Goethezeit.

A unique window on the world of nineteenth-century amateur music-making provided by the study of domestic musical arrangements of opera.

This commemorative volume offers a retrospective of the discipline as mirrored in the series Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft since its founding in 1993. Leading scholars examine issues of world literature, the history of ideas, gender studies, aesthetics and literary translation.