Author: Katherine Hambridge
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022656309X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
We seem to see melodrama everywhere we look—from the soliloquies of devastation in a Dickens novel to the abject monstrosity of Frankenstein’s creation, and from Louise Brooks’s exaggerated acting in Pandora’s Box to the vicissitudes endlessly reshaping the life of a brooding Don Draper. This anthology proposes to address the sometimes bewilderingly broad understandings of melodrama by insisting on the historical specificity of its genesis on the stage in late-eighteenth-century Europe. Melodrama emerged during this time in the metropolitan centers of London, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin through stage adaptations of classical subjects and gothic novels, and they became famous for their use of passionate expression and spectacular scenery. Yet, as contributors to this volume emphasize, early melodramas also placed sound at center stage, through their distinctive—and often disconcerting—alternations between speech and music. This book draws out the melo of melodrama, showing the crucial dimensions of sound and music for a genre that permeates our dramatic, literary, and cinematic sensibilities today. A richly interdisciplinary anthology, The Melodramatic Moment will open up new dialogues between musicology and literary and theater studies.
The Melodramatic Moment
Author: Katherine Hambridge
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022656309X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
We seem to see melodrama everywhere we look—from the soliloquies of devastation in a Dickens novel to the abject monstrosity of Frankenstein’s creation, and from Louise Brooks’s exaggerated acting in Pandora’s Box to the vicissitudes endlessly reshaping the life of a brooding Don Draper. This anthology proposes to address the sometimes bewilderingly broad understandings of melodrama by insisting on the historical specificity of its genesis on the stage in late-eighteenth-century Europe. Melodrama emerged during this time in the metropolitan centers of London, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin through stage adaptations of classical subjects and gothic novels, and they became famous for their use of passionate expression and spectacular scenery. Yet, as contributors to this volume emphasize, early melodramas also placed sound at center stage, through their distinctive—and often disconcerting—alternations between speech and music. This book draws out the melo of melodrama, showing the crucial dimensions of sound and music for a genre that permeates our dramatic, literary, and cinematic sensibilities today. A richly interdisciplinary anthology, The Melodramatic Moment will open up new dialogues between musicology and literary and theater studies.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022656309X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 295
Book Description
We seem to see melodrama everywhere we look—from the soliloquies of devastation in a Dickens novel to the abject monstrosity of Frankenstein’s creation, and from Louise Brooks’s exaggerated acting in Pandora’s Box to the vicissitudes endlessly reshaping the life of a brooding Don Draper. This anthology proposes to address the sometimes bewilderingly broad understandings of melodrama by insisting on the historical specificity of its genesis on the stage in late-eighteenth-century Europe. Melodrama emerged during this time in the metropolitan centers of London, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin through stage adaptations of classical subjects and gothic novels, and they became famous for their use of passionate expression and spectacular scenery. Yet, as contributors to this volume emphasize, early melodramas also placed sound at center stage, through their distinctive—and often disconcerting—alternations between speech and music. This book draws out the melo of melodrama, showing the crucial dimensions of sound and music for a genre that permeates our dramatic, literary, and cinematic sensibilities today. A richly interdisciplinary anthology, The Melodramatic Moment will open up new dialogues between musicology and literary and theater studies.
The Cambridge Companion to English Melodrama
Author: Carolyn Williams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110709593X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
A lively and accessible account of the most popular form of nineteenth-century English theatre, and its continuing influence today.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110709593X
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
A lively and accessible account of the most popular form of nineteenth-century English theatre, and its continuing influence today.
The Melodramatic Imagination
Author: Peter Brooks
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300065534
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
In this lucid and fascinating book, Peter Brooks argues that melodrama is a crucial mode of expression in modern literature. After studying stage melodrama as a dominant popular form in the nineteenth century, he moves on to Balzac and Henry James to show how these "realist" novelists created fiction using the rhetoric and excess of melodrama - in particular its secularized conflicts of good and evil, salvation and damnation. The Melodramatic Imagination has become a classic work for understanding theater, fiction, and film.
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300065534
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Book Description
In this lucid and fascinating book, Peter Brooks argues that melodrama is a crucial mode of expression in modern literature. After studying stage melodrama as a dominant popular form in the nineteenth century, he moves on to Balzac and Henry James to show how these "realist" novelists created fiction using the rhetoric and excess of melodrama - in particular its secularized conflicts of good and evil, salvation and damnation. The Melodramatic Imagination has become a classic work for understanding theater, fiction, and film.
Contesting Tears
Author: Stanley Cavell
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226098142
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
A Note on the Captions Preface Introduction 1: Naughty Orators: Negation of Voices in Gaslight 2: Psychoanalysis and Cinema: Moments of Letter from an Unknown Woman3: Ugly Duckling, Funny Butterfly: Bette Davis and Now, Voyager 4: Postscript: To Whom It May Concern 5: Stella's Taste: Reading Stella Dallas Notes Bibliography Filmography Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226098142
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 278
Book Description
A Note on the Captions Preface Introduction 1: Naughty Orators: Negation of Voices in Gaslight 2: Psychoanalysis and Cinema: Moments of Letter from an Unknown Woman3: Ugly Duckling, Funny Butterfly: Bette Davis and Now, Voyager 4: Postscript: To Whom It May Concern 5: Stella's Taste: Reading Stella Dallas Notes Bibliography Filmography Index Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.
Hollywood's Melodramatic Imagination
Author: Geoff Mayer
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476674779
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
Melodrama is the foundation of American cinema. It is, however, a poorly understood term. While it is a pervasive and persuasive dramatic mode, it is not tied to any specific moral or ideological system. It is not a singular genre; rather, it operates as a "genre generating machine" capable of determining the aesthetics and structure of the drama within many genres. Melodrama centers the conflict around the clash between good and evil and provides a sense of poetic justice--but the specific values embedded in notions of good and evil are determined by the culture, and they shift from nation to nation, region to region, and period to period. This book explores the "populist" westerns of the 1930s, the propaganda films that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the popularity of Sax Rohmer's master villain Fu Manchu. "Melodramas of passion" and film noir also offer a challenge to melodrama with its seemingly alienated protagonists and downbeat endings. Yet, with few exceptions, Hollywood was able to assimilate these genres within its melodramatic imagination.
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476674779
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 350
Book Description
Melodrama is the foundation of American cinema. It is, however, a poorly understood term. While it is a pervasive and persuasive dramatic mode, it is not tied to any specific moral or ideological system. It is not a singular genre; rather, it operates as a "genre generating machine" capable of determining the aesthetics and structure of the drama within many genres. Melodrama centers the conflict around the clash between good and evil and provides a sense of poetic justice--but the specific values embedded in notions of good and evil are determined by the culture, and they shift from nation to nation, region to region, and period to period. This book explores the "populist" westerns of the 1930s, the propaganda films that followed the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the popularity of Sax Rohmer's master villain Fu Manchu. "Melodramas of passion" and film noir also offer a challenge to melodrama with its seemingly alienated protagonists and downbeat endings. Yet, with few exceptions, Hollywood was able to assimilate these genres within its melodramatic imagination.
Mia the Melodramatic
Author: Eileen Boggess
Publisher: Bancroft Press
ISBN: 9781890862565
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
Mia is fifteen and during her summer vacation she starts working at a children's playhouse, meets new people (including Eric, who she knew once long ago when he was not so interesting) and continues sibling warfare with her younger brother Chris.
Publisher: Bancroft Press
ISBN: 9781890862565
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 188
Book Description
Mia is fifteen and during her summer vacation she starts working at a children's playhouse, meets new people (including Eric, who she knew once long ago when he was not so interesting) and continues sibling warfare with her younger brother Chris.
The Cambridge Companion to English Melodrama
Author: Carolyn Williams
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108606113
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
This newly commissioned series of essays by leading scholars is the first volume to offer both an overview of the field and also current emerging critical views on the history, form, and influence of English melodrama. Authoritative voices provide an introduction to melodrama's early formal features such as tableaux and music, and trace the development of the genre in the nineteenth century through the texts and performances of its various sub-genres, the theatres within which the plays were performed, and the audiences who watched them. The historical contexts of melodrama are considered through essays on topics including contemporary politics, class, gender, race, and empire. And the extensive influences of melodrama are demonstrated through a wide-ranging assessment of its ongoing and sometimes unexpected expressions - in psychoanalysis, in other art forms (the novel, film, television, musical theatre), and in popular culture generally - from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108606113
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
This newly commissioned series of essays by leading scholars is the first volume to offer both an overview of the field and also current emerging critical views on the history, form, and influence of English melodrama. Authoritative voices provide an introduction to melodrama's early formal features such as tableaux and music, and trace the development of the genre in the nineteenth century through the texts and performances of its various sub-genres, the theatres within which the plays were performed, and the audiences who watched them. The historical contexts of melodrama are considered through essays on topics including contemporary politics, class, gender, race, and empire. And the extensive influences of melodrama are demonstrated through a wide-ranging assessment of its ongoing and sometimes unexpected expressions - in psychoanalysis, in other art forms (the novel, film, television, musical theatre), and in popular culture generally - from the nineteenth to the twenty-first century.
The Melodramatic Public
Author: R. Vasudevan
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230118127
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 471
Book Description
What does it mean to say Indian movies are melodramatic? How do film audiences engage with socio-political issues? What role has cinema played in the emergence of new economic forms, consumer cultures and digital technologies in a globalizing India? Ravi Vasudevan addresses these questions in a wide-ranging analysis of Indian cinema.
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230118127
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 471
Book Description
What does it mean to say Indian movies are melodramatic? How do film audiences engage with socio-political issues? What role has cinema played in the emergence of new economic forms, consumer cultures and digital technologies in a globalizing India? Ravi Vasudevan addresses these questions in a wide-ranging analysis of Indian cinema.
Latin American Melodrama
Author: Darlene J. Sadlier
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252092325
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 195
Book Description
Like their Hollywood counterparts, Latin American film and TV melodramas have always been popular and highly profitable. The first of its kind, this anthology engages in a serious study of the aesthetics and cultural implications of Latin American melodramas. Written by some of the major figures in Latin American film scholarship, the studies range across seventy years of movies and television within a transnational context, focusing specifically on the period known as the "Golden Age" of melodrama, the impact of classic melodrama on later forms, and more contemporary forms of melodrama. An introductory essay examines current critical and theoretical debates on melodrama and places the essays within the context of Latin American film and media scholarship. Contributors are Luisela Alvaray, Mariana Baltar, Catherine L. Benamou, Marvin D’Lugo, Paula Félix-Didier, Andrés Levinson, Gilberto Perez, Darlene J. Sadlier, Cid Vasconcelos, and Ismail Xavier.
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252092325
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 195
Book Description
Like their Hollywood counterparts, Latin American film and TV melodramas have always been popular and highly profitable. The first of its kind, this anthology engages in a serious study of the aesthetics and cultural implications of Latin American melodramas. Written by some of the major figures in Latin American film scholarship, the studies range across seventy years of movies and television within a transnational context, focusing specifically on the period known as the "Golden Age" of melodrama, the impact of classic melodrama on later forms, and more contemporary forms of melodrama. An introductory essay examines current critical and theoretical debates on melodrama and places the essays within the context of Latin American film and media scholarship. Contributors are Luisela Alvaray, Mariana Baltar, Catherine L. Benamou, Marvin D’Lugo, Paula Félix-Didier, Andrés Levinson, Gilberto Perez, Darlene J. Sadlier, Cid Vasconcelos, and Ismail Xavier.
Music for the Melodramatic Theatre in Nineteenth-Century London and New York
Author: Michael V. Pisani
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 160938265X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
Throughout the nineteenth century, people heard more music in the theatre—accompanying popular dramas such as Frankenstein, Oliver Twist, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Lady Audley’s Secret, The Corsican Brothers, The Three Musketeers, as well as historical romances by Shakespeare and Schiller—than they did in almost any other area of their lives. But unlike film music, theatrical music has received very little attention from scholars and so it has been largely lost to us. In this groundbreaking study, Michael V. Pisani goes in search of these abandoned sounds. Mining old manuscripts and newspapers, he finds that starting in the 1790s, theatrical managers in Britain and the United States began to rely on music to play an interpretive role in melodramatic productions. During the nineteenth century, instrumental music—in addition to song—was a common feature in the production of stage plays. The music played by instrumental ensembles not only enlivened performances but also served other important functions. Many actors and actresses found that accompanimental music helped them sustain the emotional pitch of a monologue or dialogue sequence. Music also helped audiences to identify the motivations of characters. Playwrights used music to hold together the hybrid elements of melodrama, heighten the build toward sensation, and dignify the tragic pathos of villains and other characters. Music also aided manager-directors by providing cues for lighting and other stage effects. Moreover, in a century of seismic social and economic changes, music could provide a moral compass in an uncertain moral universe. Featuring dozens of musical examples and images of the old theatres, Music for the Melodramatic Theatre charts the progress of the genre from its earliest use in the eighteenth century to the elaborate stage productions of the very early twentieth century.
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 160938265X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 415
Book Description
Throughout the nineteenth century, people heard more music in the theatre—accompanying popular dramas such as Frankenstein, Oliver Twist, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Lady Audley’s Secret, The Corsican Brothers, The Three Musketeers, as well as historical romances by Shakespeare and Schiller—than they did in almost any other area of their lives. But unlike film music, theatrical music has received very little attention from scholars and so it has been largely lost to us. In this groundbreaking study, Michael V. Pisani goes in search of these abandoned sounds. Mining old manuscripts and newspapers, he finds that starting in the 1790s, theatrical managers in Britain and the United States began to rely on music to play an interpretive role in melodramatic productions. During the nineteenth century, instrumental music—in addition to song—was a common feature in the production of stage plays. The music played by instrumental ensembles not only enlivened performances but also served other important functions. Many actors and actresses found that accompanimental music helped them sustain the emotional pitch of a monologue or dialogue sequence. Music also helped audiences to identify the motivations of characters. Playwrights used music to hold together the hybrid elements of melodrama, heighten the build toward sensation, and dignify the tragic pathos of villains and other characters. Music also aided manager-directors by providing cues for lighting and other stage effects. Moreover, in a century of seismic social and economic changes, music could provide a moral compass in an uncertain moral universe. Featuring dozens of musical examples and images of the old theatres, Music for the Melodramatic Theatre charts the progress of the genre from its earliest use in the eighteenth century to the elaborate stage productions of the very early twentieth century.