This is the first study to recognize the wider picture of opera within early-modern French culture. Downing Thomas considers the place of music within a cultural environment--the employment of music b
The search for the origins of language was one of the most pressing philosophical issues of the eighteenth century. What has often escaped notice, however, is the fact that music figures prominently in this search. This study analyses instances of thinking or reasoning about music and music theory as they appear within the logical and narrative structure of contemporary texts, including writings by Rousseau, Diderot, Rameau and Condillac. These can only be properly understood as part of an interdisciplinary project, as situated within a field of larger cultural issues and concerns. The author is interested in the ways in which music functions within this discursive framework to facilitate links between language and meaning, and between conceptions of an original society and an ideal social order.
This study recognizes the broad impact of opera in early-modern French culture. Downing A. Thomas considers the use of operatic spectacle and music by Louis XIV as a vehicle for absolutism; the resistance of music to the aesthetic and political agendas of the time; and the long-term development of opera in eighteenth-century humanist culture. He argues that French opera moved away from the politics of the absolute monarchy in which it originated to address Enlightenment concerns with sensibility and feeling. The book combines close readings of significant seventeenth-century and eighteenth-century operatic works, circumstantial writings and theoretical works on theatre and opera, together with a measure of reception history. Thomas examines key works by Lully, Rameau and Charpentier, among others, and extends his reach from the late seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth.
The essays in this volume share a common concern with investigating Enlightenment categories of historical understanding and determining how these categories helped shape Enlightenment culture. The c
The interdisciplinary essays in this volume represent innovative scholarship on the Enlightenment in Britain, Europe, and North America.Contributors and ContentsRichard Barney, The Splenetic Sublime:
This volume spotlights the visual arts, vision, and blindness during the Enlightenment in France, Britain, and Germany. The essays range from exploring the musical and cultural impact of an eighteenth
Climate, Change and Risk presents an overview of 'extreme' weather related events and our ability to cope with them. It focuses on society's responses, insurance matters and methodologies for the anal
