This dissertation investigates George F. Handel's use of the Figurenlehre or Doctrine of Musical Figures in his Brockes Passion, and also analyses the poetic rhetoric in Barthold Heinrich Brockes' "Der fur der Sunde der Welt gemarterte und sterbende Jesus," normally called the Passion Oratorio. / The poetic Figurenlehre had its roots in ancient Greece, where Aristotle was the first person known to have written on rhetoric and the art of oratory. Centuries later, Roman writers, particularly Cicero and Quintilian began to codify and classify what we now commonly call figures of speech. Much later, Renaissance writers, particularly Italian humanists, began to relate rhetorical style--the style of embellishing a line with ornaments and decorative figures--to poetry. The dissertation traces the Renaissance influence through the German Baroque poets and rhetoricians as well as the influence on B. H. Brockes of the so-called first and second Silesian schools of the first half of the seventeenth century. The Passion Oratorio is analyzed in terms of the classical, Renaissance and Baroque rhetorical theories and definitions of figures used by Brockes in his work. / The musical portions deal with the development of the musical Figurenlehre, particularly in seventeenth-century Germany, and various musical theorists' attempts to imitate the rhetorical patterns of speech through music. These portions suggest the likelihood that Handel learned German theories of the Figurenlehre and used them in his musical setting of Brockes' poem. The Brockes Passion is analyzed for various musical figures, all of which are set to equivalent poetical-rhetorical figures of the text. / The dissertation concludes that Brockes was taught classical rhetoric in school and used Ciceronian rhetoric in his poem. It also concludes that Handel learned both poetic and musical rhetoric, and that he used musical figures (motives and phrases) which German Baroque music theorists equated with poetic figures of speech. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, Section: A, page: 1764. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1984.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75332 |
| Contributors | BRITSCH, ROYDEN EDWIN., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 222 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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