In recent years scholars have begun to re-evaluate the works, writings, and life of Robert Schumann (1810-1856). One of the primary issues in this ongoing re-evaluation is a reassessment of the composer's late works (roughly defined as those written after 1845). Until recently, the last eight years of Schumann's creative life and the works he composed at that time either have been ignored or critiqued under an image of an illness that had caused periodic breakdowns. Schumann's late works show how his culture and the artists communicating within that culture were transformed from the beginning to the middle of the nineteenth century. These late works, therefore, should be viewed in the context of Schumann's output as a whole and in regard to their contributions to nineteenth-century society. Schumann's contributions, specifically to the genre of the song cycle from 1849 to 1852, are among his late compositional works that still await full reconsideration. A topical study, focusing on three themes of selections from his twenty-three late cycles, will provide a critical evaluation of Schumann's compositional output in the genre of the song cycle. First, Schumann's political voice will be examined. The political events that led to the mid-nineteenth-century revolutions inspired crucial changes in European life and the art produced at that time. Schumann took an active role through his artistic contributions in which he exercised his political voice in responding to these changing events. Second, Schumann's storytelling voice will be explored. In the nineteenth century, storytellers remembered past events in order to comment on social and political issues of their own day. Schumann's storytelling voice allowed him to embrace a change in his own musical style and message in several late cycles.ird, Schumann's (relational) feminist voice will be considered. In two late cycles Schumann featured historical women: Elisabeth Kulmann (1808-1825), a Russian poet, and Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587). In both of these cycles, Schumann closely associated these women's lives with their work and appreciated their strength and their abilities to transcend their earthly burdens. These late song cycles not only allow us to fully appreciate a large part of Schumann's late-compositional oeuvre, but they also provide us a better understanding of the mid-century German culture from this artist's perspective. The method by which Schumann communicated with his audiencesone so different from that of the 1840-songsis as significant as the messages he hoped to communicate. Schumann's experiences leading up to 1848 had changed him as a man and as a musician. Through his late song cycles, Schumann communicated his ideas about the transformation that happened within himself, his audiences, and the German culture and proposed ways to resolve the many conflicts that existed.

No description available.

The theatre in the nineteenth century was a source of entertainment similar in popularity to today's film culture, but critics, of both that age and today, often look down on nineteenth-century theatre as lacking in aesthetic merit. Just as many of the films now being produced in Hollywood are adapted from popular or classic literature, many theatrical productions in the early 1800s were based on popular literary works, and it is in that practice of adaptation that value in nineteenth-century theatre can be discerned. The abundance of theatrical adaptations during the nineteenth century expanded the arena in which the public could experience and interact with the great popular literature produced during the period. Additionally, theatrical adaptations afforded audiences the opportunity of considering how the medium of theatre functions artistically, since a story on stage is communicated differently than a story in print. Studying theatrical work as adaptation – especially when we focus on the manner in which the subject is communicated rather than on alterations in the subject itself – reminds us that the theatrical medium is not constituted of the same formal elements as literature and should not be judged according to the same criteria. The stage of the early nineteenth century, perhaps more than in any other age, was defined by its appeal to the sense of sight rather than by attempts to be literary by using literary devices on the stage. Instead, theatre of this age found ways of communicating the subject material of popular literature in an entirely new "language" system, with varying degrees of success. Considering adaptation as a process of translation from one aesthetic language to another reveals that some creative minds were more attuned to the unique aesthetic capabilities of each medium than others. Two case studies of theatrical adaptations produced in nineteenth-century England apply this model of adaptation while considering the unique stage conventions, expectations, and culture of the day. These analyses reveal differing degrees of sensitivity to the mode of communication in literature and theatre.

This thesis deconstructs the gender symbolism evident in the opera Faust (1859) by Gounod. The objective is to determine the gendered authenticity, originality and contributing nature of the work, acknowledging the Catholic nineteenth-century French context in which it was written. The study aims to establish the nature of the gender constructs portrayed (whether representative of their conservative milieu, or suggestive of unconventionality, liberalism and innovation) and how these portrayals were executed by Gounod and his librettists. An exploration of the construction of Faust and a comparison with Goethe’s Faust: Der Tragödie Erster Teil (1808), on which the Gounodian creation is loosely based, initiates the study. The theory of performativity by Judith Butler (1990), together with other general gender hypotheses on, for instance, masculine and feminine personalities and perversity, follows. Hereafter, gender in the context of artistic performances, and gender constructs in Christianity are investigated. These general, performance-based and theological theories and ideas are then compared to the gendered characters in Faust. The secular and Catholic gender norms that governed men and women in nineteenth-century France inevitably had an influence on how gender is represented in the opera. Hence, contextual aspects, as well as Gounod’s own interaction with, and exhibition of gender are analysed in order to establish their influential extent on Faust. A deconstruction of the opera as three different texts – libretto, score and DVD productions of three Faust performances – is applied since this contributes to holistic and objective conclusions. The aspects investigated in the study have brought to light that Faust shamelessly highlights the destructive consequences of social, cultural and religious gender stereotypes governing nineteenth-century Catholic France, whilst simultaneously proposing liberated gender identities. Gounod is innovative in presenting a female protagonist through the role of Marguerite. She is an intricate, developing character representative of multiple perplexed femininities, many of which are conquering and symbolic of female empowerment. Siébel serves as a source of great gender ambiguity and contradiction. These aspects are fuelled by an ironic female identity – hence, the notion of performativity is ingeniously incorporated into this character. Both femininity and masculinity is advocated in the portrayals of Méphistophèles and the Christian God, while interesting and unexpected masculinities are embodied through Faust and Valentin. By using the above methodology, I suggest that Gounod’s Faust is an authentic and pioneering work representing ambivalent, controversial, contradictory and empowering gender constructs, making it a composition of considerable worth, both musically and historically. NB: Additional information available on a CD stored at the Merensky Library front Counter. / Dissertation (MMus)--University of Pretoria, Pretoria, 2013. / 5 CDs available with the study. Kept at the Open Scholarship Office in the Embargo room. / Music / unrestricted

<div>This dissertation explores the figure of the mad scientist in Victorian literature through some of the most enduring literary examples, viewing these works not as anti-science cautionary tales but rather thought experiments for dealing with hazardous scientists and hazardous science. It makes a claim for a spectrum of hazardous scientists from the beneficial to the truly mad and argues that the primary difference between them is a matter of socialization. It argues that these novels advocate for the scientist and society to negotiate and co-construct a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship.<br></div>

This dissertation argues for the central role that higher education played in the making and remaking of gender difference as a fundamental organizing category of British politics and society. From the mid-nineteenth century, major legal, political, and economic shifts newly provided some—mostly elite—women with access to citizenship and the labor market. Nevertheless, gender segregation and gender difference remained essential to conceptions of women's participation in British politics and society. Across the same period, the number of universities in Britain doubled and national student intake more than tripled. Higher education became increasingly centralized and state-funded, and a degree increasingly became a professional qualification for both men and women. My dissertation examines the relationships between these changes and assesses their significance, moving beyond progressive accounts of women's formal admission to degrees. Drawing on extensive research in the archives of ten universities across England and Scotland, I show that gender was at the heart of faculty's, students', administrators', politicians', and donors' conceptions of what higher education was for, who should have access to it, and the extent to which universities should be funded by national government. Though expert opinion across Britain coalesced rapidly around the support of large coeducational research universities, this did little to alter gender difference as the fundamental organizing principle of university life. Campus relations between men and women remained conflicted, and the professional, social, and emotional lives of faculty and students remained largely gender-segregated—contributing to the lasting significance of gender difference for British politics and culture. I demonstrate these claims across three main sections of the dissertation, which cover how gender structured, respectively: the political and legal transformation of higher education, the culture of student life, and the relationship between faculty's careers and personal lives.

The nineteenth century emerges as a pivotal period in the spatial formation of the United States; it is an era marked by expansionism and the consolidation of the nation. Up until today, many historical writings relate the nineteenth century to spatial concepts such as the Frontier and the Errand into the Wilderness—the settlement of the territory of the United States on an East-West trajectory.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.