This article analyzes Madeline Miller’s Circe in relation to the contemporary trend of women’s mythological retellings of marginalized female characters. Because of Circe’s first-person narrative, Miller’s book has been interpreted and marketed as empowering and feminist; however, Circe’s narrative structure rather reaffirms the ideological assumptions underlying the ‘masculine’ Bildungsroman, where the female character’s individual experience is defined by romance and she is ultimately excluded from the social scene. The dichotomy between the marketing rhetoric of empowerment and the novel’s actual narrative structure stimulates a broader reflection about the ideological implication of this novelistic trend as a whole. On the one hand, these novels exploit the well-established exemplary value of Graeco-Roman antiquity to offer a new version of the classical canon which accommodates the critiques of radical movements like feminism; on the other hand, they appropriate the progressive aura of such movements to secure a broader audience while in fact leaving power imbalances unquestioned.
{"title":"Circe, the female hero. First-person narrative and power in Madeline Miller’s Circe","authors":"Valeria Spacciante","doi":"10.1093/crj/clae011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clae011","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyzes Madeline Miller’s Circe in relation to the contemporary trend of women’s mythological retellings of marginalized female characters. Because of Circe’s first-person narrative, Miller’s book has been interpreted and marketed as empowering and feminist; however, Circe’s narrative structure rather reaffirms the ideological assumptions underlying the ‘masculine’ Bildungsroman, where the female character’s individual experience is defined by romance and she is ultimately excluded from the social scene. The dichotomy between the marketing rhetoric of empowerment and the novel’s actual narrative structure stimulates a broader reflection about the ideological implication of this novelistic trend as a whole. On the one hand, these novels exploit the well-established exemplary value of Graeco-Roman antiquity to offer a new version of the classical canon which accommodates the critiques of radical movements like feminism; on the other hand, they appropriate the progressive aura of such movements to secure a broader audience while in fact leaving power imbalances unquestioned.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-09-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142258694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores the online aesthetic ‘Dark Academia’ from the perspective of Classical reception. Dark Academia became popular during the COVID-19 era as an internet subculture revolving around bookishness, university culture, the Gothic, and the Classical. From its beginning as a Tumblr fandom around Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992), Dark Academia has grown to reach millions of followers worldwide across numerous social media platforms. This article argues that we can think of Dark Academia’s reception of Classics as a ‘haunting’ as defined by James Uden in Spectres of Antiquity (2020), made up of fragmentary, disconnected references — similar to the reception of Classics in Gothic literature. Dark Academia’s reception, however, is twofold: a reception of Classical antiquity itself, but also of the academic discipline of Classics. As such, the field is twice implicated. Classics must address Dark Academia both as a potential gateway for attracting interest in the ancient world, but also as another phenomenon that reflects and amplifies its own pernicious disciplinary legacy.
{"title":"The haunting of classics in the Dark Academia aesthetic","authors":"Tori F Lee","doi":"10.1093/crj/clae007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clae007","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the online aesthetic ‘Dark Academia’ from the perspective of Classical reception. Dark Academia became popular during the COVID-19 era as an internet subculture revolving around bookishness, university culture, the Gothic, and the Classical. From its beginning as a Tumblr fandom around Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992), Dark Academia has grown to reach millions of followers worldwide across numerous social media platforms. This article argues that we can think of Dark Academia’s reception of Classics as a ‘haunting’ as defined by James Uden in Spectres of Antiquity (2020), made up of fragmentary, disconnected references — similar to the reception of Classics in Gothic literature. Dark Academia’s reception, however, is twofold: a reception of Classical antiquity itself, but also of the academic discipline of Classics. As such, the field is twice implicated. Classics must address Dark Academia both as a potential gateway for attracting interest in the ancient world, but also as another phenomenon that reflects and amplifies its own pernicious disciplinary legacy.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141568171","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
While debates about ‘Eurocentric’ versus ‘Afrocentric’ theories of history have driven previous studies of Du Bois’s writings on ancient Africa, I read his account of African antiquity in Black Folk Then and Now in the context of the moral and educational projects articulated within both Greco-Roman and African American historiography. I pay special attention to conventional ancient views of history that Diodorus expresses in his Bibliotheke, which treats history as a source of morally instructive examples and ‘universal history’ as especially educational because it synthesizes different historical narratives: these concepts of history were broadly influential into the nineteenth century, including among African American writers. An ancient model of universal history allows Du Bois to tell the story of a distinct human community and nevertheless insist on the unity of peoples, a principle which is central to his philosophy of race and of human history writ large.
{"title":"W. E. B. Du Bois’s universal history in Black Folk Then and Now (1939)","authors":"Harriet Fertik","doi":"10.1093/crj/clae006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clae006","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 While debates about ‘Eurocentric’ versus ‘Afrocentric’ theories of history have driven previous studies of Du Bois’s writings on ancient Africa, I read his account of African antiquity in Black Folk Then and Now in the context of the moral and educational projects articulated within both Greco-Roman and African American historiography. I pay special attention to conventional ancient views of history that Diodorus expresses in his Bibliotheke, which treats history as a source of morally instructive examples and ‘universal history’ as especially educational because it synthesizes different historical narratives: these concepts of history were broadly influential into the nineteenth century, including among African American writers. An ancient model of universal history allows Du Bois to tell the story of a distinct human community and nevertheless insist on the unity of peoples, a principle which is central to his philosophy of race and of human history writ large.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141352380","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Performing classical drama at ancient venues in interwar Greece reflected the socio-cultural context of the time. The development of archaeological tourism and the perception of classical monuments as heterotopic spaces created particular political and ideological needs. Until the mid-1930s, private theatre companies and individual artists reused classical venues such as the Odeon of Herodes Atticus and the theatre of Epidaurus to stage productions that gradually attracted local, national, and international attention. But by 1936, the National Theatre began exploiting the socio-political potential of ancient theatres and classical drama festivals and state-sponsored productions dominated the Greek theatrical stage. During this period, the claims of exclusivity on the part of the National Theatre and the National Conservatoire defined their competition with private companies and shaped the course of the revival of classical drama in twentieth-century Greece.
战时希腊在古代场所演出古典戏剧反映了当时的社会文化背景。考古旅游的发展以及将古典遗迹视为异域空间的观念产生了特殊的政治和意识形态需求。直到 20 世纪 30 年代中期,私人剧团和个人艺术家一直在重新使用古典场所,如希律阿提库斯剧场(Odeon of Herodes Atticus)和埃皮达鲁斯剧场(the theatre of Epidaurus),上演的剧目逐渐吸引了当地、国内和国际的关注。但到了 1936 年,国家剧院开始开发古代剧院的社会政治潜力,古典戏剧节和国家资助的剧目主导了希腊戏剧舞台。在这一时期,国家剧院和国家音乐学院的排他性主张决定了它们与私人公司的竞争,并影响了 20 世纪希腊古典戏剧的复兴进程。
{"title":"The classical drama as contested heritage in modern Greece: theatre productions from private initiatives to state projects in the 1930s","authors":"Vasileios Balaskas","doi":"10.1093/crj/clad033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clad033","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Performing classical drama at ancient venues in interwar Greece reflected the socio-cultural context of the time. The development of archaeological tourism and the perception of classical monuments as heterotopic spaces created particular political and ideological needs. Until the mid-1930s, private theatre companies and individual artists reused classical venues such as the Odeon of Herodes Atticus and the theatre of Epidaurus to stage productions that gradually attracted local, national, and international attention. But by 1936, the National Theatre began exploiting the socio-political potential of ancient theatres and classical drama festivals and state-sponsored productions dominated the Greek theatrical stage. During this period, the claims of exclusivity on the part of the National Theatre and the National Conservatoire defined their competition with private companies and shaped the course of the revival of classical drama in twentieth-century Greece.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141268500","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Kamila Shamsie’s (2017) novel Home Fire draws on Sophocles’ Antigone for its plot, but neither requires familiarity with, nor explicitly references, the tragedy. This article attempts to build a specific case for the effects of attending to the intertext by focusing on Shamsie’s complex treatment of Antigone’s punishment and its consequences in Sophocles. Reading the novel’s denouement in conversation with that of the tragedy suggests questions about higher authority and checks on political power in the world of the novel. I argue that shared stories in the novel exert a force analogous to that of Sophocles’ gods in that they authorize moral judgments; attention to the intertext enacts the same experience for readers of the novel that shared stories do for characters within the novel.
{"title":"‘Something Mythic’: The power of shared stories in Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire","authors":"Clara Shaw Hardy","doi":"10.1093/crj/clae005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clae005","url":null,"abstract":"Kamila Shamsie’s (2017) novel Home Fire draws on Sophocles’ Antigone for its plot, but neither requires familiarity with, nor explicitly references, the tragedy. This article attempts to build a specific case for the effects of attending to the intertext by focusing on Shamsie’s complex treatment of Antigone’s punishment and its consequences in Sophocles. Reading the novel’s denouement in conversation with that of the tragedy suggests questions about higher authority and checks on political power in the world of the novel. I argue that shared stories in the novel exert a force analogous to that of Sophocles’ gods in that they authorize moral judgments; attention to the intertext enacts the same experience for readers of the novel that shared stories do for characters within the novel.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141166669","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article discusses a crematorium inaugurated in 1923 in the municipal Northern Cemetery (Nordre Kirkegård) of Aarhus as a case of vernacular classicism in interwar Denmark. While earlier works by its architect Sophus Frederik Kühnel (1851–1930) followed National Romantic, Renaissance, and Gothic models, the crematorium stands out because of its crowning feature, a stepped pyramid roof that emulates one of the most characteristic architectural elements of the mid-fourth-century BCE Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, described by Pliny the Elder (HN 36.31) and other ancient authors. This reference to one of the most famous funerary monuments from classical antiquity is both functionally and symbolically appropriate in a cemetery setting and also fits into a longer history of ‘Mausoleumania’, both in Denmark and internationally. Furthermore, it reflects a broader architectural movement of vernacular, ‘Nordic’ classicism during the interwar period, when local architects ‘translated’ classical elements into the vernacular, for example, through prominent use of brickwork and eclectic combinations of classical motifs with both medieval and National Romantic forms. Kühnel’s crematorium shows some of the creative ways in which Scandinavian architects freely adapted distinctive elements from the repertoire of classical architecture, in this case in response to the rise of cremation.
{"title":"Vernacular classicism and the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus: the architectural imaginary of a Danish interwar crematorium","authors":"Troels Myrup Kristensen","doi":"10.1093/crj/clae003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clae003","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article discusses a crematorium inaugurated in 1923 in the municipal Northern Cemetery (Nordre Kirkegård) of Aarhus as a case of vernacular classicism in interwar Denmark. While earlier works by its architect Sophus Frederik Kühnel (1851–1930) followed National Romantic, Renaissance, and Gothic models, the crematorium stands out because of its crowning feature, a stepped pyramid roof that emulates one of the most characteristic architectural elements of the mid-fourth-century BCE Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, described by Pliny the Elder (HN 36.31) and other ancient authors. This reference to one of the most famous funerary monuments from classical antiquity is both functionally and symbolically appropriate in a cemetery setting and also fits into a longer history of ‘Mausoleumania’, both in Denmark and internationally. Furthermore, it reflects a broader architectural movement of vernacular, ‘Nordic’ classicism during the interwar period, when local architects ‘translated’ classical elements into the vernacular, for example, through prominent use of brickwork and eclectic combinations of classical motifs with both medieval and National Romantic forms. Kühnel’s crematorium shows some of the creative ways in which Scandinavian architects freely adapted distinctive elements from the repertoire of classical architecture, in this case in response to the rise of cremation.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141113888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this article, I present an analysis of the narrative discourses and literary elements found in the teknophagia story that originates with Josephus’s Bellum Judaicum and trace the development of those motifs in subsequent Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions of the story. I first outline the reception history of Josephus within medieval Coptic and Ethiopic literary traditions, by way of the Hebrew Sefer Yosippon and one of its Latin sources, the De Excidio Hierosolymitano. I then illustrate how the literariness of the various authors who reworked the teknophagia story influences a reading of the narrative discourses of each text. In doing so, I emphasize the unique iteration of the account of the cannibalistic mother that appears in the Christian-Arabic and Ethiopic histories, showing how this version of the story develops out of not only earlier stylistic changes, but also from the literary elements introduced into the story by the redactor of the Arabic reworking of the Hebrew Yosippon.
{"title":"Narrativity and literariness in receptions of Josephus’s teknophagia story","authors":"Yonatan Binyam","doi":"10.1093/crj/clae002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clae002","url":null,"abstract":"In this article, I present an analysis of the narrative discourses and literary elements found in the teknophagia story that originates with Josephus’s Bellum Judaicum and trace the development of those motifs in subsequent Latin, Hebrew, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions of the story. I first outline the reception history of Josephus within medieval Coptic and Ethiopic literary traditions, by way of the Hebrew Sefer Yosippon and one of its Latin sources, the De Excidio Hierosolymitano. I then illustrate how the literariness of the various authors who reworked the teknophagia story influences a reading of the narrative discourses of each text. In doing so, I emphasize the unique iteration of the account of the cannibalistic mother that appears in the Christian-Arabic and Ethiopic histories, showing how this version of the story develops out of not only earlier stylistic changes, but also from the literary elements introduced into the story by the redactor of the Arabic reworking of the Hebrew Yosippon.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140148688","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article explores the power of silence in the feminist recovery of classical texts to open up engaged spaces for women’s creative reworkings, taking as a case study Lavinia and her reception in Ursula Le Guin’s (2008) novel of the same name. By re-evaluating silence in dialogue with feminist and classical reception scholarship, I argue that Le Guin is able to bring a different angle to the reception of classical literary women, focusing on the gaps and spaces in Lavinia’s character that provide a medium for engagement with the incomplete text of the Aeneid. Silence thus becomes a locus in which Le Guin can transform Vergil’s silencing of Lavinia into a generative vision of the open space of interpretation available in classical literature and its reception.
本文以乌苏拉-勒奎恩(Ursula Le Guin,2008 年)的同名小说《拉维尼娅》(Lavinia)及其对她的接受为案例,探讨了在女性主义对古典文本的复原过程中,沉默的力量为女性的创造性再创作开辟了参与空间。通过与女性主义和古典文学接受研究进行对话,重新评估沉默,我认为勒奎恩能够从另一个角度看待古典文学女性的接受问题,重点关注拉维尼娅性格中的空白和空间,这些空白和空间为与《埃涅伊德》不完整文本的接触提供了媒介。因此,沉默成为勒奎恩将维吉尔对拉维尼娅的沉默转化为对古典文学及其接受的开放性阐释空间的一种生成性视角。
{"title":"‘Back from the silence with something to say’: Ursula Le Guin’s Lavinia and silence as classical reception","authors":"Emily Hauser","doi":"10.1093/crj/clae001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clae001","url":null,"abstract":"This article explores the power of silence in the feminist recovery of classical texts to open up engaged spaces for women’s creative reworkings, taking as a case study Lavinia and her reception in Ursula Le Guin’s (2008) novel of the same name. By re-evaluating silence in dialogue with feminist and classical reception scholarship, I argue that Le Guin is able to bring a different angle to the reception of classical literary women, focusing on the gaps and spaces in Lavinia’s character that provide a medium for engagement with the incomplete text of the Aeneid. Silence thus becomes a locus in which Le Guin can transform Vergil’s silencing of Lavinia into a generative vision of the open space of interpretation available in classical literature and its reception.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139679840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The Afterword addresses the efforts of Italian fascists to build an imaginary fascist community through the mythical appropriation of the past. It argues that fascism epitomized in a peculiarly contradictory and destructive manner the moderns’ reaction to what they perceived as the end of an era. The historical division between memory and history, established in the nineteenth century, engulfed the fascist movement and overlapped with other critical dichotomies that vexed Mussolini and his adepts as they pursued the revitalization of communal roots while simultaneously riding the train of change. The dualisms of community and society, tradition and modernity, and, at a more meta-level, sacred and profane confronted fascism with difficult dilemmas, eliciting responses that, as the contributors to this issue show, ultimately exposed fascism’s cultural incongruities and fallacies.
{"title":"Afterword: memory and the past: fascism, spectacle, history","authors":"Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi","doi":"10.1093/crj/clad023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clad023","url":null,"abstract":"The Afterword addresses the efforts of Italian fascists to build an imaginary fascist community through the mythical appropriation of the past. It argues that fascism epitomized in a peculiarly contradictory and destructive manner the moderns’ reaction to what they perceived as the end of an era. The historical division between memory and history, established in the nineteenth century, engulfed the fascist movement and overlapped with other critical dichotomies that vexed Mussolini and his adepts as they pursued the revitalization of communal roots while simultaneously riding the train of change. The dualisms of community and society, tradition and modernity, and, at a more meta-level, sacred and profane confronted fascism with difficult dilemmas, eliciting responses that, as the contributors to this issue show, ultimately exposed fascism’s cultural incongruities and fallacies.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139461507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This contribution aims to analyse the role of music in the revival of Greek theatre that characterized twentieth-century Italy. In particular, it explores and compares the music composed for INDA productions between 1921 and 1939. From the beginning of the festival, music occupied a crucial role, thanks to Ettore Romagnoli’s emphasis on the musical component in reviving ancient Greek drama. The years from 1921 to 1927 were characterized by the collaboration between Romagnoli and Giuseppe Mulè, who attempted to revive ancient Greek music according to modern criteria. By 1930, the festival, run by an entirely Fascist committee, had taken on a nationalistic character, and music was integral to this. Indeed, during these years (1930–39), music acquired a pivotal role in emphasizing the heroic instances of ancient drama that had become functional to the Regime’s policy. Moreover, it was considered indispensable for this increasingly mass-oriented type of performance.
{"title":"Ancient tragedy, yet modern music: musical compositions in the classical performances (1921–39)","authors":"Giovanna Casali","doi":"10.1093/crj/clad027","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/crj/clad027","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This contribution aims to analyse the role of music in the revival of Greek theatre that characterized twentieth-century Italy. In particular, it explores and compares the music composed for INDA productions between 1921 and 1939. From the beginning of the festival, music occupied a crucial role, thanks to Ettore Romagnoli’s emphasis on the musical component in reviving ancient Greek drama. The years from 1921 to 1927 were characterized by the collaboration between Romagnoli and Giuseppe Mulè, who attempted to revive ancient Greek music according to modern criteria. By 1930, the festival, run by an entirely Fascist committee, had taken on a nationalistic character, and music was integral to this. Indeed, during these years (1930–39), music acquired a pivotal role in emphasizing the heroic instances of ancient drama that had become functional to the Regime’s policy. Moreover, it was considered indispensable for this increasingly mass-oriented type of performance.","PeriodicalId":42730,"journal":{"name":"Classical Receptions Journal","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139454554","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}