ebook Genius and Melancholia Dorota Mackenzie

Wydawca: Wydawnictwa Uniwersytetu Warszawskiego

Rok wydania: 2023

Geniusz i melancholia. Fryderyk Chopin i pedagogika romantyzmu w aspekcie nauk performatywnych

Książka jest interdyscyplinarnym studium funkcjonowania wybitnej jednostki w społeczeństwie. Przedmiot rozważań badaczki to z jednej strony sposób konstruowania – czy też performowania – statusu artysty-geniusza, Fryderyka Chopina, z drugiej – teatr jego życia codziennego interpretowany jako praktyka dramatyczna i jej kulisy. Na przykładzie biografii polskiego kompozytora autorka analizuje performans romantyzmu, indywidualizmu, a także performans Chopina jako idei odradzającej się i wieczne trwałej. W obszarze jej zainteresowania znalazły się ponadto koncepty geniuszu, gruźlicy jako metafory epoki, melancholii, wirtuozerii i dandyzmu, a także koncept „wielości romantyzmów” w pierwszej połowie XIX wieku. Badaczka skupia się również na społecznym odbiorze tych pojęć i ich funkcjonowaniu w XIX-wiecznym europejskim kontekście artystycznym.

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The book is an interdisciplinary study of the way an outstanding individual functions in society. The author explores how the artistic genius of Fryderyk Chopin is structured or performed and how the theatre of his everyday life is interpreted as dramatic practice and its backstage. Using the biography of the Polish composer, the author analyses performance in Romanticism, individualism and Chopin’s performance as a reborn and resurgent idea. Theauthor also explores the notion of genius, tuberculosis as a metaphor of the period, melancholy, virtuosity, dandyism and the “multitude of Romanticisms” in the first half of the 19 th century. She focuses on the social perception of these concepts and their functioning in the 19th century European artistic context.

Spis treści ebooka Genius and Melancholia

Acknowledgments 9
Introduction 11
Abbreviations 17

PART I
Performance of Romanticism
Chopin as a Suffering Melancholic Genius
Chapter 1. Performance of the Body 21
Romantic Genius and the Divine Malady 22
Tuberculosis: Its Romantic Metaphors in Popular
Culture versus Medical Etiology 25
Fryderyk Chopin – the Suffering Genius – Case Study
under a Performative Lens 31
Banishing TB – Internal and External Asylums –
Mallorca and Nohant 39
The Many-Faced Disease – Chopin Aut Deus, Aut Daemon
50
Blood and the Uncanny – Chopin, Vampirism, and
Romantic Gothicism 54
Water and the Melancholic Victory of Sorrow 59
Le dernier regard aux traits du Grand Maître (KFC II
463): The Exemplary Agony of the Ultimate Romantic
Genius 63

Chapter 2. Performance of Spirit 73
Genius, Melancholia, and Inspiration 73
Furor Romanticus – Furor Melancholicus 75
Chopin’s Algorithm of Existential Sorrow – Moja Biéda
80
From Melancholia Generosa to Modern Genius 87
Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae – Some
Aspects of the Romantic Genius, le Génie Mélancolique
91
Voir clair dans le ravissement – Chopin the Romantic
(Non-)Prophet 96
Romantic Genius and Psychoanalysis – the Concept of
Inward Performative Personality and Shame 100

PART II
Performance of Individualism
Chopin as a Unique Romantic Virtuoso and Dandy
Chapter 3. The Virtuoso Performer 111
Towards the Blue Note – Paris of “Pianists, Asses and
Virtuosos” 111
Performance on the Verge – Between the Enlightenment
and Romanticism: Building the Grounds for
Correspondance des Arts 119
Shifting Codes of Representation – the Virtuoso of
Caricature and Improvisation 126
The Epiphany of the Virtuoso: Pinpointing the Mystery
132
Microcosme et Microthée: The Piano as the Divine
Telegraph and the Instrument of the Nineteenth
Century 138
Bel Canto, or the Tubercular Song 145
Tempo Rubato: Towards Celebrityism à Rebours 150

Chapter 4. The Dandy Performer 153
Le Beau Monde – Chopin’s Presence in the Romantic
Salons 157
“Playing House” 168
Lucrezia Floriani’s Doll Effect 177
Gender Ambivalence in the Representation of the
Genius Dandy 182
Chopin Flâneur? Espaces Imaginaires 189

PART III
Chopin as an Idea – An Ongoing Performance: The Afterlife
Chapter 5. Multiple Romanticisms 199
Genius Patriae: On Chopin’s Polishness and
Cosmopolitanism 200
Romantic Volksgeist – Chopin and the Mythical Slavic
Soul 213
Transcendental Chopin – Conversations with God 221
Chopin’s Epistemology – Tere bzdere kuku – Music as
Existence 228
Mason without an Apron – Chopin and Freemasonry 232
Chopin the Philistine? In the arms of Biedermeier,
“Domesticized Romanticism” 236

Epilogue. In the Shadow of the Romantic Paradigm 241
Chopin’s Afterlife – towards the Chopin Olympics –
Apollo and Marsyas 241

Conclusion 245
The Ultimate Artist – Chopin against Philistinism and
Performativity 245

Bibliography 249
Index of Persons 271