Schumann's Virtuosity
Schumann's Virtuosity

Author: Alexander Stefaniak

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2016-09-19

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 0253022096

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“A valuable resource for musicologists, theorists, pianists, and aestheticians interested in reading about Schumann’s views on virtuosity.” —Notes Considered one of the greatest composers—and music critics—of the Romantic era, Robert Schumann (1810–1856) played an important role in shaping nineteenth-century German ideas about virtuosity. Forging his career in the decades that saw abundant public fascination with the feats and creations of virtuosos (Liszt, Paganini, and Chopin among others), Schumann engaged with instrumental virtuosity through not only his compositions and performances but also his music reviews and writings about his contemporaries. Ultimately, the discourse of virtuosity influenced the culture of Western “art music” well beyond the nineteenth century and into the present day. By examining previously unexplored archival sources, Alexander Stefaniak looks at the diverse approaches to virtuosity Schumann developed over the course of his career, revealing several distinct currents in nineteenth-century German virtuosity and the enduring flexibility of virtuosity discourse.

Virtuosity and the Musical Work
Virtuosity and the Musical Work

Author: Jim Samson

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-04-23

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 113943621X

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This book is about three sets of etudes by Liszt: the Etude en douze exercices (1826), its reworking as Douzes grandes études (1837), and their reworking as Douzes études d'exécution transcendante (1851). At the same time it is a book about nineteenth-century instrumental music in general, in that the three works invite the exploration of features characteristic of the early Romantic era in music. These include: a composer-performer culture, the concept of virtuosity, the significance of recomposition, music and the poetic, and the consolidation of a musical work-concept. A central concern is to illuminate the relationship between the work-concept and a performance- and genre-orientated musical culture. At the same time the book reflects on how we might make judgements of the 'Transcendentals', of the Symphonic Poem Mazeppa (based on the fourth etude), and of Liszt's music in general.

Verse and Virtuosity
Verse and Virtuosity

Author: Janie Steen

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2008-05-24

Total Pages: 257

ISBN-13: 1442691301

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While there is little evidence of formal rhetorical instruction in Anglo-Saxon England, traditional Old English poetry clearly shows the influence of Latin rhetoric. Verse and Virtuosity demonstrates how Old English poets imitated and adapted the methods of Latin literature, and, in particular, the works of the Christian Latin authors they had studied at school. It is the first full-length study to look specifically at what Old English poets working in a Latinate milieu attempted to do with the schemes and figures they found in their sources. Janie Steen argues that, far from sterile imitation, the inventiveness of Old English poets coupled with the constraints of vernacular verse produced a vital and markedly different kind of poetry. Highlighting a selection of Old English poetic translations of Latin texts, she considers how the translators responded to the challenge of adaptation, and shows how the most accomplished, such as Cynewulf, absorb Latin rhetoric into their own style and blend the two traditions into verse of great virtuosity. With its wide-ranging discussion of texts and rhetorical figures, this book can serve as an introduction to Old English poetic composition and style. Verse and Virtuosity, will be of considerable interest to Anglo-Saxonists, linguists, and those studying rhetorical traditions.

Poetry as Play
Poetry as Play

Author: María Cristina Quintero

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 1991-01-01

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 9027277737

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During the Golden Age, poetry and drama entered into a dynamic intertextual and intergeneric exchange. The Comedia appropriated the different poetic currents prevalent during the Renaissance and also often enacted the controversies surrounding poetic language. Of particular interest is the influence of gongorismo on the comedia. Luis de Góngora himself experimented with dramatic form in his two little-known plays, Las firmezas de Isabela and El doctor Carlino. In his quest for effective dramatic language, Lope de Vega dramatized Gongorine language through both parody and respectful imitation. Calderón de la Barca, whose plays represent the culmination of Góngora's influence on Golden Age theater, transformed gongorismo into a rich, performative code that functions simultaneously as poetic discourse and dramatic convention.

Critical Engagements on African Literature
Critical Engagements on African Literature

Author: Abba A. Abba

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2019-09-24

Total Pages: 431

ISBN-13: 152754043X

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Beyond the critical examination of Isidore Diala’s award-winning poetry and drama, the essays in this collection offer fresh insights on the complex methodological and theoretical patterns underlying the readings of African literary landscapes. This is the first book to devote considerable attention to the study of Diala’s creative works The Pyre (drama) and The Lure of Ash (poetry). The majority of the contributors here are selected from among the finest of Diala’s former teachers, colleagues and students who know him very closely. The collection addresses fertile areas of African literary expression, such as the relationship between literature and national history, African ritual aesthetics; affirmation, denial and ambivalence as products of social constructions; and exile, migration and home-coming. Contributions also explore poetry and poetic truths; semiotics; anticolonial revolutions and postcolonial implosions; oil politics; discontent and militancy; and feminism and gender politics. The book stands out among its peers, and offers great insights to scholars, researchers and teachers working in the fields of African literature, cultures and aesthetics.

German Romantic Literature
German Romantic Literature

Author: Ralph Tymms

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-01-30

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13: 1000760154

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Originally published in 1955, this book discusses Romantic principles and their interpretation in literary practice, supported by the documentation (with translations) of numerous quotations from the writings of the romantic authors themselves. The emphasis lies on the evolution of Romantic ideas and practices in Germany, in the establishment and formulation of romantic theory by its first exponents.

The Mercat Anthology of Early Scottish Literature 1375-1707
The Mercat Anthology of Early Scottish Literature 1375-1707

Author: R.D.S. Jack

Publisher: Birlinn Ltd

Published: 2008-10-30

Total Pages: 633

ISBN-13: 178885571X

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This large-scale anthology of early Scottish Literature, now revised, has been designed as a teaching text for use by school and university students. Longer works are either presented complete - e.g. James I, King is Quair; as long extracts with explanatory linking passages - e.g. Urquhart, The Jewel; or by sections which sum up the main themes and concerns of the text-e.g. Barbour's Bruce Book I. There are full critical and linguistic introductions; brief biographical and bibliographical introductions for each author or sub-section; the texts have all been re-edited; every difficult word is glossed, and full explanatory notes appear at the foot of each page. A substantial Appendix presents texts in Latin, Scots, English and Gaelic from the seventeenth century, demonstrating the vitality and interaction of these voices within the Scottish tradition. A noteworthy feature of the book is Professor Jack's Critical Introduction, 'Where Stands Scottish Literature Now?' This challenges many widely-held assumptions about Scottish literature. In particular it seeks to explore the reasons behind the strange neglect of the writers of the seventeenth century. Basing its argument on the texts of the Anthology as a whole, it seeks to re-define the accepted canon and suggests an alternative way of approaching Scottish literary history.

Classicism and Romanticism in Italian Literature
Classicism and Romanticism in Italian Literature

Author: Fabio A Camilletti

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-10-06

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1317321340

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In 1816 a violent literary quarrel engulfed Bourbon Restoration Italy. On one side the Romantics wanted an opening up of Italian culture towards Europe, and on the other the Classicists favoured an inward-looking Italy. Giacomo Leopardi wrote a Discourse of an Italian on Romantic Poetry aiming to contribute to the debate from a new perspective.

Shakespeare and the Poet's Life
Shakespeare and the Poet's Life

Author: Gary Schmidgall

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2014-10-17

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0813157250

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Shakespeare and the Poet's Life explores a central biographical question: why did Shakespeare choose to cease writing sonnets and court-focused long poems like The Rape of Lucrece and Venus and Adonis and continue writing plays? Author Gary Schmidgall persuasively demonstrates the value of contemplating the professional reasons Shakespeare—or any poet of the time—ceased being an Elizabethan court poet and focused his efforts on drama and the Globe. Students of Shakespeare and of Renaissance poetry will find Schmidgall's approach and conclusions both challenging and illuminating.