The symphonie concertante, a product of the late eighteenth-century Parisian concert societies, provided a vehicle for display of the virtuoso style sought by contemporary audiences. The works of the Chevalier Joseph Boulogne de Saint-Georges, one of its chief exponents, served as strong influences on the development of the form and its diffusion throughout Europe. The symphonies concertantes of Opus VI, No. 1 and Opus X, No. 2 (according to thematic numbering of Barry S. Brook) date from ca. 1775 and 1779 respectively. A complete set of parts for each is to be found in the private collection of M. Andre Meyer in Paris (Opus VI) and in the Universitetsbiblioteket at Lund (Opus X). The thesis contains background material on contemporary Parisian musical society and the life of Saint- Georges, and a modern scoring of the above symphonies concertantes with analysis and conclusions.

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To appreciate fully the ethical dimensions inherent in the literature of the eighteenth century it is necessary to understand the moral bias of an author, a bias often best ascertained by a study of the treatment he accords good nature and prudence. Although several scholarly articles and portions of longer studies recognize the importance of these virtues for individual writers, no single work has appeared which traces fully the history of the idea of good nature and prudence as complementary virtues in the eighteenth century. The present study provides a systematic analysis of these virtues as treated in theology, ethical philosophy, and fiction from the later seventeenth century to about 1800.

Rhetoric, seen either as the art of persuasion or as the art of figurative expression, has been largely neglected as an approach to the poetry of the Romantics. The most important reason for this seems to be the rejection of rhetoric by the Romantics themselves. As a result of negative comments about rhetoric by Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats, scholars seeking clues about the Romantics' literary principles in their critical writings have agreed that eighteenth-century rhetoric was either abandoned or substantially altered by early nineteenth century poets. The eighteenth-century belief that figures possess a unique power of communicating an author's passions and emotions continued to be transmitted as a viable literary tradition in the nineteenth century. Poetry was thought to have special privilege in the employment of rhetorical devices. In practice, if not in theory, early nineteenth-century poets did not abandon the use of such devices in their creations. An analysis of the role of rhetorical figures in the works of Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Keats demonstrates that it is a mistake to envision the poetry of the Romantic movement as a spontaneous outgrowth of an abrupt shift in poetic taste, a shift which demanded the omission of classical poetic devices. Often the Romantic poets were more nearly in accord with the strictures of rhetoricians such as Blackwall or Ward than many of the Augustan poets had been.

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This thesis explores James Macpherson’s The Highlander (1758) in relation to originality, Scottish identity and historiography. It also situates the Ossianic Collections in the context of Macpherson’s earlier poetical and later historical works. There are three parts to it: a biographical sketch of Macpherson’s early life, the annotated edition of The Highlander, and discursive commentary chapters. By examining The Highlander in detail this thesis questions the emphasis of other Macpherson criticism on the Ossianic Collections, and allows us to see him as a writer who is historically minded, very aware of sources, well versed in established forms of poetry and thoroughly, and positively, British. The Highlander stands out among the corpus of his works not because it can give us insights into the Ossianic Collections, which is its usual function in Macpherson criticism, but because it can help us understand what it is that connects Macpherson’s earlier and later works with the Ossianic Collections: history, Britishness, tradition. Macpherson’s poetical works are united by a desire to translate Scotland’s factual past into sentimental British poetry. In the Ossianic Collections he does so without particular faithfulness to his sources, but in The Highlander he converts historical sources directly into neo-classic verse. This is where Macpherson’s originality lies: his ability to adapt history. In different styles and genres, and based on different sources, Macpherson’s works are early examples of Scotland’s great literary achievement: historical fiction. Instead of accusing him of forgery or trying to trace his knowledge of Gaelic ballads, this thesis presents Macpherson as a genuine historian who happened to write in a variety of genres.

The purpose of the study is the investigation of the topics of transposition and the transposed major and minor modes as discussed principally by selected French authors of the final twenty years of the seventeenth century and the first three decades of the eighteenth. The sources are relatively varied and include manuals for singers and instrumentalists, dictionaries, independent essays, and tracts which were published in scholarly journals; special emphasis is placed on the observation and attempted explanation of both irregular signatures and the signatures of the minor modes. The paper concerns the following areas: definitions and related concepts, methods for singers and Instrumentalists, and signatures for the tones which were identified by the authors. The topics are interdependent, for the signatures both effected transposition and indicated written-out transpositions. The late Baroque was characterized by much diversity with regard to definitions of the natural and transposed modes. At the close of the seventeenth century, two concurrent and yet diverse notions were in evidence: the most widespread associated "natural" with inclusion within the gamme; that is, the criterion for naturalness was total diatonic pitch content, as specified by the signature. When the scale was reduced from two columns to a single one, its total pitch content was diminished, and consequently the number of the natural modes found within the gamme was reduced. An apparently less popular view narrowed the focus of "natural tone" to a single diatonic pitch, the final of the tone or mode. A number of factors contributed to the disappearance of the long-held distinction between natural and transposed tones: the linking of the notion of "transposed" with the temperament, the establishment of two types of signatures for the minor tones (for tones with sharps and flats, respectively), the transition from a two-column scale to a single-column one, and the recognition of a unified system of major and minor keys.

This dissertation examines the role of "acceptable" feminine violence in Restoration and eighteenth-century drama and fiction. Scenes such as Lady Davers's physical assault on Pamela in Samuel Richardson's Pamela (1740) have understandably troubled recent scholars of gender and literature. But critics, for the most part, have been more inclined to discuss women as victims of violence than as agents of violence. I argue that women in the Restoration and eighteenth century often used violence in order to maintain social boundaries, particularly sexual and economic ones, and that writers of the period drew upon this tradition of acceptable feminine violence in order to create the figure of the violent woman as a necessary agent of social control. One such figure is Violenta, the heroine of Delarivier Manley's novella The Wife's Resentment (1720), who murders and dismembers her bigamous husband. At her trial, Violenta is condemned to death "notwithstanding the Pity of the People" and "the Intercession of the Ladies," who believe that although the "unexampled Cruelty [Violenta] committed afterwards on the dead Body" was excessive, the murder itself is not inexcusable given her husband's bigamy. My research draws upon diverse archival materials, such as conduct manuals, criminal biographies, and legal records, in order to provide a contextual grounding for the interpretation of literary works by women. Moving between contemporary accounts of feminine violence and discussions of pertinent literary works by Eliza Haywood, Susanna Centlivre, Delarivier Manley, Aphra Behn, Mary Pix, and Jane Wiseman, the dissertation examines issues of interpersonal violence and communal violence committed by women.

xi, 387 p. / A print copy of this title is available through the UO Libraries under the call number: MUSIC MT49 .K36 2006 / The use of basso continuo in the performance of many late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century genres is well documented, yet the influence of this practice on the Lieder during that time has never been fully explored. This dissertation analyzes Lied accompaniments of the period in relation to the recommendations found in contemporary thorough bass treatises in order to demonstrate that continuo practice did have an effect both on what composers were writing and how the songs were being performed. The majority of written-out Lied accompaniments from the late eighteenth-century conform to the recommendations given by treatise authors on matters of texture, distribution of the notes between the hands, octave doublings, parallel intervals, embellishments, and relationship of the keyboard part to the solo line. Furthermore, figured basses were still printed in some songs into the early part of the nineteenth century. Well-known nineteenth-century Lied composers, such as Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms also frequently use these simple, continuo-like keyboard parts, and incorporate common continuo techniques for filling out chords into their more complex accompaniments. The fact that continuo practice, a tradition in which improvisation played a large role, continued to have such a pervasive influence on the printed Lied suggests that additions and embellishments can be made to what is written on the page. Furthermore, evidence from secondary sources, statements by musicians of the period, and clues in the music itself confirm that composers did not always intend for performers to play exactly what is notated. In this dissertation, I argue that in many of these songs the musical score should be viewed as only a basic outline, which can then be adapted depending on the skill level of the performers, the available keyboard instruments, and the context of the performance. Principles from the continuo treatises serve as a guide for knowing what additions to make, and I offer suggestions of possible applications. Appendices detail the contents of 50 continuo treatises published between 1750 and 1810. / Adviser: Dr. Anne Dhu McLucas Committee: Dr. Marc Vanscheeuwijck, Dr. Marian Smith, Dr. Kenneth Calhoon

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