The Orphic Moment

The Orphic Moment PDF

Author: Robert McGahey

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1994-01-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9780791419410

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book examines Orpheus as a figure who bridges the experience of the Greek tribal shaman and the modern poet Stéphane Mallarmé, the father of modernism. First mentioned in 600 B.C., Orpheus was present at the moment when the Apolline forms of western culture were being encoded. He appears again at the opposite moment embodied in the language-crisis at the end of the nineteenth century, which inaugurated the break-up of those forms and ushered in the Dionysian. Mallarmé's "Orphic Moment," when Orpheus's scattered limbs first begin to stir back to life, enacts a dance at the boundary of Apollo and Dionysos, marking the collapse of Apolline form back into its Dionysian ground in Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy.

The Orphic Moment

The Orphic Moment PDF

Author: Robert McGahey

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 1994-07-01

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 1438412428

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This book examines Orpheus as a figure who bridges the experience of the Greek tribal shaman and the modern poet Stéphane Mallarmé, the father of modernism. First mentioned in 600 B.C., Orpheus was present at the moment when the Apolline forms of western culture were being encoded. He appears again at the opposite moment embodied in the language-crisis at the end of the nineteenth century, which inaugurated the break-up of those forms and ushered in the Dionysian. Mallarmé's "Orphic Moment," when Orpheus's scattered limbs first begin to stir back to life, enacts a dance at the boundary of Apollo and Dionysos, marking the collapse of Apolline form back into its Dionysian ground in Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy.

Silence and Absence in Literature and Music

Silence and Absence in Literature and Music PDF

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-04-08

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 9004314865

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This volume focusses on the rarely discussed reverse side of traditional, ‘given’ objects of studies, namely absence rather than presence (of text) and silence rather than sound. It does so from the bifocal and interdisciplinary perspective which is a hallmark of the book series Word and Music Studies. The twelve contributors to the main subject of this volume approach it from various systematic and historical angles and cover, among others, questions such as to what extent absence can become significant in the first place or iconic (silent) functions of musical scores, as well as discussions of fields ranging from baroque opera to John Cage’s 4’33’’. The volume is complemented by two contributions dedicated to further surveying the vast field of word and music studies. The essays collected here were originally presented at the Ninth International Conference on Word and Music Studies held at London University in August 2013 and organised by the International Association for Word and Music Studies. They are of relevance to scholars and students of literature, music and intermediality studies as well as to readers generally interested in phenomena of absence and silence.

The Death of Stephane Mallarme

The Death of Stephane Mallarme PDF

Author: Leo Bersani

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-07-16

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780521115674

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In this highly original and provocative study, Bersani takes us away from the interpretative questions which the competing critics of Mallarmé familiarly raise, and explores a fundamental paradox within his work as a whole. On the one hand Mallarmé can be taken as a prime example of textual imperialism in modern literature: his hermetic poems seem to demand ever more interpretative ingenuity from his readers and to provide a foretaste of the supreme Book which he dreamed of - 'the Orphic explanation of the Earth'. On the other hand he mounted an extraordinary assault on literature's claims to importance. He went so far as to propose a view of literature as an essentially wordless fiction incapable both of communicating the nature of reality and of producing knowledge of reality. He comes to be engaged in the somewhat eerie strategy of celebrating literature as a way of burying it. He does not, however, give up writing; in fact, he begins what Leo Bersani considers to be his revolutionary subversion of literature at the very moment when he becomes a man of letters. In tracing this paradox, Bersani brings fresh insights to much of Mallarmé's work and suggests a unique way of understanding Mallarmé's place in modern literature.

Reading Rilke's Orphic Identity

Reading Rilke's Orphic Identity PDF

Author: Erika M. Nelson

Publisher: Peter Lang

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 9783039102877

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This study of Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926) examines the poet's understanding of the malleable nature of identity, while addressing the question of Rilke's place in literary history. In line with contemporary literary theory which views the «self» as a societal «construction» and strategic narrative device, this study explores Rilke's preoccupations with identity in his work, as he investigates the disintegration of the subjective self in the modern world. Rilke's re-readings of the mythological figures of Orpheus and Narcissus in modern psychological terms, as well as in terms of traditional poetics, are keys not only to his poetics and his changing understanding of «self», but also to his evolving critique of society. This study tracks how Rilke's Orphic work disengages traditional patterns of perceptions, not only to challenge fidelity to history, but also to recover the power of traditional elements from that history to help articulate subjectivity in new terms.

French Twentieth Bibliography

French Twentieth Bibliography PDF

Author: Douglas W. Alden

Publisher: Susquehanna University Press

Published: 1995-08

Total Pages: 564

ISBN-13: 9780945636861

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

This series of bibliographical references is one of the most important tools for research in modern and contemporary French literature. No other bibliography represents the scholarly activities and publications of these fields as completely.

Writing Japonisme

Writing Japonisme PDF

Author: Pamela A. Genova

Publisher: Northwestern University Press

Published: 2016-04-30

Total Pages: 545

ISBN-13: 0810132206

DOWNLOAD EBOOK →

In her book, Pamela Genova suggests that as critics move in general from a literal to a more metaphoric understanding and presentation of Japonisme, the mutability of the phenomenon is highlighted in a rich and illuminating manner. By exploring the conditions of the creation of these works, accenting the original aims of the artists, the manipulations carried out by art dealers, gallery owners, and boutique managers, as well as the gestures of explanation, interpretation, and judgment offered by the professional and amateur critics, Japonisme takes on an even more versatile nature. Further, a complex web of correspondence germinates among these artists—both French and Japanese—and their many critics. It is in this light that the truly rich character of Japonisme comes forth, since the undesirability, even the impossibility of the attempt to reduce it to a single genre, style, era, or cultural cadre attests to its elusiveness and its Protean nature. Japonisme does not correspond to a single dictionary definition, no matter how subtle or self-aware that definition might be. By situating the dynamics of Japonisme as a response on the part of French culture to the culture of Japan, we gain a keener sense of the multiplicity of modern French sensibility itself, of how the awareness of a nation’s language, history, and art forms can be creatively reflected in the images of a culture seemingly radically different from its own.