Politics And Aesthetics In European Baroque And Classicist Tragedy

Politics and Aesthetics in European Baroque and Classicist Tragedy is a volume of essays investigating European tragedy in the seventeenth century, comparing Shakespeare, Vondel, Gryphius, Racine and several other vernacular tragedians, together with consideration of neo-Latin dramas by Jesuits and other playwrights. To what extent were similar themes, plots, structures and styles elaborated? How is difference as well as similarity to be accounted for? European drama is beginning to be considered outside of the singular vernacular frameworks in which it has been largely confined (as instanced in the conferences and volumes of essays held in the Universities of Munich and Berlin 2010-12), but up-to-date secondary material is sparse and difficult to obtain. This volume intends to help remedy that deficit by addressing the drama in a full political, religious, legal and social context, and by considering the plays as interventions in those contexts. Contributors are: Christian Biet, Jan Bloemendal, Helmer J. Helmers, Blair Hoxby, Sarah M. Knight, Tatiana Korneeva, Frans-Willem Korsten, Joel B. Lande, Russell J. Leo, Howard B. Norland, Kirill Ospovat, James A. Parente, Jr., Freya Sierhuis, Nienke Tjoelker and Emily Vasiliauskas.

This volume addresses the idea of the Baroque in European literature in Latin. With contributions by scholars from various disciplines and countries, and by looking at a range of texts from across Europe, the volume offers case studies to deepen scholarly understanding of this important literary phenomenon and inspire future research. A key aim of the volume is to address the distinctiveness of these texts by interrogating the usefulness and specificity of the term 'Baroque', especially in relation to the classical rules it transgresses to produce effects of grandeur, richness, and exuberance in a range of secular and sacred arts (e.g. music, architecture, painting), as well as various forms of literature (e.g. prose, poetry, drama). The contributors consider how and why Latin writing mutated from earlier humanist paradigms, thus exploring how ideas of 'early modern' and 'Baroque' are related, and examine the interplay of the theory and practice of the 'Baroque', including its debts to and deviations from ancient models, and its limits and limitations.

Few periods in history are so fundamentally contradictory as the Baroque, the culture flourishing from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries in Europe. When we hear the term âBaroque,â the first images that come to mind are symmetrically designed gardens in French chateaux, scenic fountains in Italian squares, and the vibrant rhythms of a harpsichord. Behind this commitment to rule, harmony, and rigid structure, however, the Baroque also embodies a deep fascination with wonder, excess, irrationality, and rebellion against order. The Oxford Handbook of the Baroque delves into this contradiction to provide a sweeping survey of the Baroque not only as a style but also as a historical, cultural, and intellectual concept. With its thirty-eight chapters edited by leading expert John D. Lyons, the Handbook explores different manifestations of Baroque culture, from theatricality in architecture and urbanism to opera and dance, from the role of water to innovations in fashion, from mechanistic philosophy and literature to the tension between religion and science. These discussions present the Baroque as a broad cultural phenomenon that arose in response to the enormous changes emerging from the sixteenth century: the division between Catholics and Protestants, the formation of nation-states and the growth of absolutist monarchies, the colonization of lands outside Europe and the mutual impact of European and non-European cultures. Technological developments such as the telescope and the microscope and even greater access to high-quality mirrors altered mankindâs view of the universe and of human identity itself. By exploring the Baroque in relation to these larger social upheavals, this Handbook reveals a fresh and surprisingly modern image of the Baroque as a powerful response to an epoch of crisis.

This clear and engaging book offers readers an introduction to European Literary History from antiquity through to the present day. Each chapter discusses a short extract from a literary text, whilst including a close reading and a longer essay examining other key texts of the period and their place within European Literature. Offering a view of Europe as an evolving cultural space and examining the mobility and travel of literature both within and out of Europe, this guide offers an introduction to the dynamics of major literary networks, international literary networks, publication cultures and debates, and the cultural history of 'Europe' as a region as well as a concept.

This volume of essays contributes to our understanding of the ways in which the Jesuits employed emotions to “change hearts”—that is, convert or reform—both in Europe and in the overseas missions.

Tragedy has been reborn many times since antiquity. Seventeenth-century French playwrights composed tragedies marked by neoclassical aesthetics and the divine-right absolutism of the Grand Siècle. But their works also speak to the modern imagination, inspiring reactions from Barthes, Derrida, and Foucault; adaptations and reworkings by Césaire and Kushner; and new productions by francophone and anglophone directors. This volume addresses both the history of French neoclassical tragedy--its audiences, performance practice, and development as a genre--and the ideas these works raise, such as necessity, free will, desire, power, and moral behavior in the face of limited choices. Essays demonstrate ways to teach the plays through a variety of lenses, such as performance, spectatorship, aesthetics, rhetoric, and affect. The book also explores postcolonial engagement, by writers and directors both in and outside France, with these works.

This book addresses the distinct representations of emotions in non-fictional texts from the seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century (1600-1850). Focusing on memoirs, autobiographies, correspondences and conduct manuals, it argues that in those writings, passions and emotions are differently expressed than in fiction. It also offers a comparative study of texts from cultures as diverse as English, French, Korean and Chinese, and of emotions in relation to genre, identity, and morality during significant cultural transformation of the early modern period. This book is distinctive in its choice of non-fictional genres, its period, and its cross-cultural approach. It can benefit scholars interested in exploring emotion as a historical and cultural product, and in enriching their knowledge of an emerging scholarly direction: studies in self-narratives (autobiography, memoirs, dream narratives, letters, etc.) often insufficiently explored in earlier historical periods.

For the first time, a group of distinguished authors come together to provide an authoritative exploration of the cultural history of tragedy in the Middle Ages. Reports of the so-called death of medieval tragedy, they argue, have been greatly exaggerated; and, for the Middle Ages, the stakes couldn't be higher. Eight essays offer a blueprint for future study as they take up the extensive but much-neglected medieval engagement with tragic genres, modes, and performances from the vantage points of gender, politics, theology, history, social theory, anthropology, philosophy, economics, and media studies. The result? A recuperated medieval tragedy that is as much a branch of literature as it is of theology, politics, law, or ethics and which, at long last, rejoins the millennium-long conversation about one of the world's most enduring art forms. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: forms and media; sites of performance and circulation; communities of production and consumption; philosophy and social theory; religion, ritual and myth; politics of city and nation; society and family, and gender and sexuality.