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Tag Archives: Lupercus

Pastorals: of Shepherds & Shepherdesses

14 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Literature

≈ Comments Off on Pastorals: of Shepherds & Shepherdesses

Tags

Alfred Bierstadt, Beethoven's 6th, Christopher Marlowe, Lupercus, Marie-Antoinette, Molière's Précieuses ridicules, Pastoral, Roman Lupercalia, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, Thomas Cole, Titian, Virgil

Giorgione, Pastoral Concert. Louvre, Paris. A work which the Louvre now attributes to Titian, c. 1509.[9]

Giorgione, Pastoral Concert. Louvre, Paris. A work which the Louvre now attributes to Titian, c. 1509. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Giorgione, born Giorgio Barbarelli da Castelfranco (c. 1477/8–1510)
Titian, born Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576)
(Italian High Renaissance)

Pastorals: a Genre and a Movement

Pan is the “Greek god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, and companion of the nymphs” (Pan, Wikipedia) whose Roman counterpart is Faunus as well as Lupercus, the God of Shepherds.

Greek and Roman Antiquity: Theocritus and Virgil

Pan is also the god of all things “pastoral,” such as pastoral music. The Pastorale is a form of Italian music and the word “pastoral” is also used to describe Beethoven’s 6th symphony. Moreover, there is a pastoral literature.

Pastoral literature is rooted in Greek and Roman Antiquity, as is the Lupercalia.  Its two Greek and Roman authors are Theocritus[i] (born c. 300 bc, Syracuse, Sicily [Italy]—died after 260 bc), the creator of pastoral poetry[ii], and Virgil.[iii]  Virgil or Vergil wrote not only the Aeneid, but also the Egloges or Bucolics and the Georgics.  The Egloges can be read online at Egloges, a Gutenberg publication.

Closer to us pastoral literature begins with Battista Guarini‘s bucolic tragicomedy Il Pastor Fido[iv] (1580 to 1585), The Faithful Shepherd, set in Arcadia, literally, a region of Greece; metaphorically, an idyllic countryside.

La Préciosité: French 17th-Century Salons

Moreover, pastoral, also describes the “perfect” world of 17th-century salonniers and salonnières who made believe they were shepherds and shepherdesses.  Préciosité was escapism at its worst or its best, depending on one’s point of view.  Seventeenth-century Précieuses (literally, precious) put such a high price on marriage and sexuality, that they often made suitors wait a very long time.  French dramatist Molière[v] ridiculed the Précieuses in Les Précieuses ridicules (Théâtre du Petit-Bourbon, 18 November 1659).

Préciosité was a lifestyle.  It was courtly love carried to an extreme, i.e. platonic love precluding sexuality.  Préciosité is therefore at the opposite end of the Lupercalia which celebrated fertility.  Lupercus was god of shepherds, but not the imaginary shepherds and shepherdesses of précieux convention, nor the raucous Luperci of the Lupercalia, but Christopher Marlowe‘s well-mannered yet “passionate” shepherd, associated with courtly love, idyllic love that does not exclude sexuality.

Christopher Marlowe’s Shepherds and Sheperdhesses

The Passionate Shepherd to his Love by Christopher Marlowe (baptised on 26 February 1564 – 30 May 1593) is perhaps the most celebrated of English pastoral poems:

Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.
 
There will we sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
 
(Pastoral, Wikipedia) 
The Course of Empire, Arcadian or Pastoral State, by Thomas Cole

The Course of Empire, Arcadian or Pastoral State by Thomas Cole, 1836

Marie-Antoinette & Geoffrey Chaucer

Earlier in my new career as blogger, I wrote a post about Marie-Antoinette, an accomplished musician who composed a lovely “pastorale” that straddles the less rigid conventions of courtly love and Christopher Marlowe’s “The Passionate Shepherd to his Love.”  Courtly love’s masterpiece, sometimes considered too daring, is the Roman de la Rose, The Romaunt of the Rose, an allegory of love translated, though not in its entirety, by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Valentine’s Day

Chaucer (c. 1343 – 25 October 1400) can in fact be credited with the birth of Valentine’s Day as we know it, a matter discussed in my next post.  However, Chaucer was influenced by a tapestry, La Dame à la licorne (The Lady and the Unicorn), housed at the Cluny Museum, in Paris.  The Unicorn is a mythical animal that can only be captured by a virgin.  However, the Unicorn is also a trans–cultural figure, hence multi-faceted.

RELATED ARTICLES 

  • “C’est mon ami,” composed by Marie Antoinette (michelinewalker.com)
  • Tea at Trianon: C’est mon ami (Elena Maria Vidal)
  • The Lady and the Unicorn: the Six Senses (michelinewalker.com)
  • The Lady and the Unicorn: a Tapestry (michelinewalker.com)
_________________________
[i] “Theocritus”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 13 Feb. 2013 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/590569/Theocritus>.
 
[ii] “Pastoral literature”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia BritannicaOnline.  Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 13 Feb. 2013 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/446078/pastoral-literature>.
 
[iii] “Virgil”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2013. Web. 13 Feb. 2013 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/629832/Virgil/24449/Literary-career>.
 
[iv] Battista Guarini (born 10 Dec. 1538, Ferrara—died 7 Oct. 1612, Venice) and Torquato Tasso (born 11 March 1544, Sorrento, Kingdom of Naples [Italy]—died 25 April 1595, Rome) are “credited with establishing the form of a new literary genre, the pastoral drama.” (See footnote [ii].)
 
[v] born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, baptised 15 January 1622 –  17 February (1673).
 
 
composer: Ludwig van Beethoven (baptized 17 December 1770 – 26 March 1827)
piece: “Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68, “Pastoral,” 4th and 5th movements, “the Storm”
performers: Wiener Philharmoniker
conductor: Karl Böhm (28 August 1894 in Graz – 14 August 1981 in Salzburg)
featured artist: Albert Bierstadt (7 January 1830 – 18 February 1902)
 
Cabbage and Vine, by Morris,

Cabbage and Vine, by William Morris

  © Micheline Walker
  14 February 2013
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News, Comments & Andrea Mantegna

03 Sunday Feb 2013

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Sharing

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Andrea Mantegna, Ave Regina Caelorum, Candlemas, Feasts, Groundhog Day, Jesus, Lupercus, Nunc Dimittis, Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, Simeon

Présentation de Jésus au temple, Andrea Mantegna, 1465
Présentation de Jésus au temple, Andrea Mantegna, 1465
Andrea Mantegna (c. 1431 – 13 September 1506) Italian Renaissance
Photo credit: Wikipedia
 

More on Candlemas

Today is February 3rd, but there are more Candlemas stories to tell.  For instance, Candlemas is also “pancake feast,” la fête des crêpes, a tradition that goes back to ancient Greece.  In ancient Greece, Lupercus was the god Pan.  In ancient Roman, the feast was called Lupercalia (lupus, loup) but it was usually celebrated in mid-February, on the 13th.  It had to do with keeping the wolf away from innocent sheep.  Lupercus was the god of shepherds.  I will tell more stories next February 2nd.

We now have three posts on Candlemas and know about

  • the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple,
  • the Nunc dimittis, a canticle, Simeon’s song of praise,
  • the Purification of the Virgin,
  • the beginning of a new Marian season,
  • the antiphon of the season “Ave Regina Cælorum,”[i]
  • and Groundhog Day.

I realize that fewer people go to a service on Sunday or attend Mass, but music and the fine arts have kept alive religious, mythological and mythical “reality.”  Aert de Gelder (or Arent, 26 October 1645 – 27 August 1727), a student of Rembrandt, painted Simeon holding the child Jesus and, as noted above, Simeon sang the Nunc dimittis when he saw Jesus, as he had been told by none other than the Holy Ghost.  (See Nunc Dimittis, Wikipedia).  Religious feasts are usually associated with the seasons, mythologies give us a past, myths provide metaphors, and feed the imagination.  Yet myths are the fruit of imagination.

William Byrd (English Renaissance) composed a very fine “Nunc Dimittis.”  It is featured in a post entitled: Nunc Dimittis, Simeon’s Song of Praise (2 February 2012).  A second “Nunc Dimittis,” composed by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (3 February 1525 or 2 February 1526 – 2 February 1594), is featured in Candlemas: the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple & a Festival of Lights (2 February 2012).

Palestrina is known for composing “transparent” polyphonic (many voices) music.  Although the voices blend, one can still hear the text.  This was important because the Reformed Churches favoured simple songs.  I have found precious gems in the Church of England’s anthems.  They engaged the faithful who were invited to sing.  The English wrote lovely, melodious anthems.  Martin Luther wrote hymns, the most famous of which is Ein’ feste Burg is unser Gott  (A Mighty Fortress is our God).

In the News

Canadian Conrad Black, no choirboy himself, has stated that “[t]he election of Kathleen Wynne and Pauline Marois’ Scotland visit might incite fear that much of Canada is being led by nasty women.”  (See The National Post.)

He could be right; women can be as nasty as men.  I know, from personal experience, that women can in fact surpass men in cruelty, jealousy, hypocrisy, etc.  They can be extremely manipulative, devious and vindictive.  Think of my little blue house.  (See From House to House.)  My “case manager” was a woman employed by a fine insurance company.  She did not lose her position.

One day, a “good” woman posted the results of an examination on the door of her office, listing her students’ marks, not next to a number, but next to a name.  I talked with her gently, but she did not know what I was talking about…   However, a little later, such behaviour became an official violation.  This may seem a detail, but good educators respect their students.  That’s rule number one.

Not that men are better.  I am thinking of that student in India, raped and probably impaled to death.  The poor young woman and her poor parents!  And there is violence in the Middle East.  Why?  Also in the news is suicide.  Young people are committing suicide!

The News

English
The Globe and Mail
The Montreal Gazette
The National Post
The New York Times
The Washington Post
Le Monde diplomatique EN 
 
CBC News
CTV News
CNN News
 
French 
Le Devoir
La Presse
Le Monde
Le Monde diplomatique
 
German 
Die Welt
_________________________

[i] or Cœlorum.  The two are used.

Andrea Mantegna was capable of crying.

madonna_with_childb5f2© Micheline Walker
February 3, 2013
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