“Music is a resource for human relationships and identities, an “anchor” that serves as a foundation for activity; inexorably musical practices are social practices” (Blackstone 6). This quote directly describes the role of the tarantella and tarantism in Italian society. Tarantism is the oldest and most elaborate spider myth that is still recounted in modern times (Isbister 549-553). This myth is described as the effect that the bite of a tarantula would have on an individual, causing many negative symptoms. The only cure seemed to be constant music. It was a “folk art” ritual for thousands of years, disappearing in the 1950s. Over the years, tarantism, and the tarantella, progressed through three different phases. These included; the beginning of this art until the late 1950s, the failed revival of the 1970s; and the revival of the 1980s until present day. Throughout this time, this ritual served dual purposes of therapy and inspiration of a social movement (Blackstone 184-206).
The tarantella originated around five-hundred years ago in Taranto, the Italian region of Apulia. Also known as Salento, this land area projects out into the Adriatic and Ionian Seas (Isbister 549-553). During this time, Salento was considered to be a dark place, which sparked intellectual curiosity (Blackstone 184-206). This art form was thought to have originated from Greek and Roman societies to honor the gods; Bacchus, Apollo, and Dionysus (Sweeney 22-23). In Greek culture, female worshipers would honor Dionysus, becoming distracted from their work to dance and play kettledrums and tambourines (Blackstone 184-206).
The Italian tarantula, found in the fields around southern Taranto, was known to bite the bare feet of the harvest workers (Sweeney 2...
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... of Southern Italy’s culture and society (Bynum 1736).
Works Cited
Blackstone, L. ""The Spider Is Alive": Reassessing Becker's Theory of Artistic Conventions
through Southern Italian Music. ”Symbolic Interaction 32.3 (2009): 184-206. ProQuest Central, ProQuest. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.
Bynum, Bill. "Discarded diagnoses." Lancet 358.9294 (2001): 1736. Academic Search Elite.
EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.
Isbister, Geoffrey K. "Necrotic arachnidism: the mythology of a modern plague." Lancet
364.9433 (2004): 549-553. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. Web. 28 Feb. 2010.
Sweeney, Philip. "ARTS WORLD MUSIC: Arachnophenia; A 2,000-year-old dance
traditionally used to cure a tarantula's bite is taking Italy by storm. PHILIP SWEENEY sinks his teeth into the phenomenon of tarantella; [FOREIGN Edition]." Independent (2003): 22-23. Web. 28 Feb 2010.
Course Pack: “Tarantella”
The object of analysis for today’s program is an Etruscan Votive ear which is displayed in the Eaton Gallery of Rome at the Royal Ontario Museum. The Etruscan Votive ear is a beige sculpture, roughly five to ten center meters in length, of a human’s right ear produced during the Republican Era of Rome between 200-100 BC (Refer to image 3 on page 9). According to the Royal Ontario Museum, the Votive Ear reflects “the lasting influence of Etruscan religion in Rome” (Refer to image 4 on page 8)
One fear that Octavia Butler illustrates in the relationship, between Shori and her human symbionts, is the overwhelming influence that pleasure has over human beings. The euphoric feeling inspired by the venom of the Ina combined with several health benefits cause humans to leave their normal ways of life and adapt to a foreign culture. Brook, a symbiont that Shori inherited from her father articulates this point when she says, “They take over our lives. And we let them because they give us so much satisfaction and…just pure pleasure.” (Butler 127) Another example of the use of pleasure as a means of domination is visible in the way that humans become highly sensitive to the suggestions of Ina once they have bitten them. It is only after Shori bites her proposed assassin that she is able to question him. After exposure to her venom, the man has no choice but to answer her questions. This embodies the fear that people act against their...
John Dowland (1563-1626) was a composer of Renaissance England and considered one of the most prolific and well-known composers of English lute song. A composer and accomplished lutenist, he is probably the most well traveled English composer of his time. Through his travels he was exposed to the musical elements of his Italian, French and German contemporaries. He developed his own musical language, in which he created a unique style for the lute song. As a composer, he focused on the development of melodic material and was able to elegantly blend words and music with a wide range of emotion and technique. For the purpose of this document we will focus on the influence of his Italian travels. John Dowland’s use of chromaticism in his lute songs as can be directly associated with such as “All ye whom love or fortune.” In these pieces, we can see the influence on this genre through his travels to Italy and encounters with such composers as Marenzio.
In his day, Johann Adolph Hasse was at the forefront of Italian opera. Although he composed a fair amount of sacred works, he is best known for his operatic output. He was widely popular throughout Italy and Germany, and was commissioned by courts and opera houses throughout Europe. His performances were attended by cultural figures at the time, as well as some of the biggest names in common-era music today. In his later life, styles changed and so Hasse’s acclaim diminished after his death. But generations later, he was re-established as a figurehead and icon of classic ancient Italian opera, a designation he possesses even today.
Public ritual in Renaissance Florence involved many actors and took many forms.1 They could be civic rituals performed by the citizens of the city, or popular rituals where anyone could participate. They could also originate in the private sphere and were made available to the public.2 Public rituals had various purposes, but most importantly, they reproduced hierarchies which conditioned the organisation of power within the Florentine polity, and ensured civil peace and harmony.3 This was particularly important in Renaissance Florence as no one monarch ruled the city, and therefore no singular figure embodying authority and morality could be looked up to by the people. Keeping law and order was the ruling class' major concern, and public rituals
Taruskin, R., & Taruskin, R. (2010). Music in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Here, Beethoven takes melodic expression to a new level: The appoggiatura in bars, 14 and 16 create a harmonic tension over a diminished 7th chord that creates “the highly expressive progression used by nineteenth-...
Because sexual cannibalism is considered to be a social taboo both today, and during the times of Tarzan and Marlow, the creation of entertainment based on it has been limited, though the urges to expand on this topic may have been far more prevalent. There have been many films and novels created which depict the anthropophagy related to animals, most specifically, spiders. For example, films such as “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and “Little Shop of Horrors” develop the similarities among human and insect anthropophagy (O’Connor).
Orr, David Gerald. ""Roman Domestic Religion: The Archaeology of Roman Popular Art"." .Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press (1980): pp. 88–103. Western New England University Academic Journal. Pdf.
Amblypygids, the scientific name for the Tailless Whip Scorpion, means blunt rump. When it comes to this creature and arachnids in general, the name is quite literal because they have no tail. Tailless Whip Scorpions, also known as Whip Spiders, look vicious but are virtually harmless. Funny enough, they became well noted in the arachnid world for how chilling and intimidating they appear. They were first discovered by Steven Blankaart in 1688 and first published about by Carl Linnaeus’ 1756 book Habitat In America.
The model of semiosis allows us the investigation of the ¡¥sign¡¦: music, in its structure, in its act and its functionality which means communication and signification. Thus we can identify ¡¥the music-sign¡¦ through the expression of the sense¡Xthe sense that "is conceived as an evidence, as the feeling of comprehension, in a very natural way" (1)¡Xand through the significance. Thus, our guidance implies ¡¥sign¡¦, ¡¥expression¡¦, ¡¥signification¡¦¡Xthe triad that brings together the coordinates of semiosis; defined, it, by Charles S.Peirce through the cooperation of the sign, its object and its interpretant (2) and by U.Eco: "the process through which the empirical individuals communicate and the processes of communication become possible thanks to the systems of significance" (3). This semiosis is put in evidence by different semio...
There are two pieces in our Renaissance Era musical feature this evening, the first by Pierre Phalèse called Passamezzo d'Italye - Reprise – Gaillarde. Phalèse began as a bookseller in 1545 and not long after he set up a publishing house. By 1575 he had around 189 music books. Much of his work was devoted to sacred music but there was a small amount of Flemish songs and instrumental works. Phalèse borrowed work from many composers and did not hesitate to include other composer’s music in his works. The sec...
Arachnida is a subphylum of Arthropoda, consisting of over 100 000 species, many of them being parasites which can carry disease. They are found in all environments, and mostly have eight legs, which is a feature, together with the fact that they do not have wings or antennae, often used to distinguish them from the other subphyla, though there are exceptions. They include spiders, scorpions, ticks and mites. Their bodies are divided up into three parts: the cephalothorax, the opisthosoma and the thorax, and use a type of lung for gas exchange. Most Arachnids are carnivorous, and eat pre-digested insects and other small animals. They reproduce using internal reproduction usually lay eggs, except for the scorpion which bears living young. The word ‘Arachnid’ comes from the Greek word ‘Arachne’ meaning ‘spider’.
The musical performance aspect of my paper was not an issue to complete. If you go to Little Italy, New York on any given weekend, especially around the holiday season or the San Gennaro Festival, musical performers are usually playing on the streets. There are many restaurants in Little Italy, Manhattan that have live entertainment; most of these musical performers will come to your table. When it came to comparing the musical traditions of Italy to the Italian-American performance that I observed, I had a little more trouble. Italian music is such a large topic to delve into–there are so many composers and different types of music that it made it difficult to narrow down my research for this paper. In future research among this community, I would suggest that the student is aware of what type of performance they are going to observe—I was unaware of whether the musician would be a Classical Italian performer or an Italian American performer. In my opinion, most of the performers in Little Italy, Manhattan seems to be Italian-American.
this spider. The spider had crawled up Peter’s arm and bit him. The spider that bit