Herbert and Campion Flashcards
(73 cards)
According to Augustine’s treatise De Musica, how does music affect the listener?
Music draws us ‘by the ears’ and allows contemplation of eternal truths, leading from ‘the corporeal to the incorporeal’.
What does the Note to Reader in Two Bookes of Ayres aim to do in his airs?
I have chiefly aimed to couple Words and Notes louingly together, which will be much for him to doe that hath not power ouer both.’
How does John Milton describe voice and verse in ‘At a Solemn Music’?
A: As ‘Sphere-born harmonious sisters.’
What analogy does Thomas Campion make between the world, music, and poetry?
A: ‘The world is made by symmetry and proportion’, comparable to music, which in turn is compared to poetry.
What does Quantitative rhythm focus on?
prosodic rhythm in terms of longs and shorts (vs accentual)
Campion aimed for a proportional relationship between metrical units harmonious proportions - what happened if this was not achieved?
‘nothing more offensive to the eare’
Why is English considered harder to set to music than French or Italian?
French and Italian naturally suit durational metre, while English prosody is less regular in that regard.
What is Trudell’s concept of ‘intermediation’?
A: Poetry is not confined to the page but can communicate through various written or performed media.
What does Herbert express in ‘The Thanksgiving’ about music?
which ‘My musick shall finde thee … And prove one God, one harmonie’
What warning does Augustine give about music appealing too much to bodily pleasure?
A: It may draw the soul away from proper contemplation of God.
‘delight is a kind of weight in the soul’
How does Milton critique cloaking the Gospel? (Reason of Church Government)
A: He argues that to cloak the Gospel suggests it is ‘naked, uncomely’ and the Church uses masks to hide God’s glory.
Jordan I on plainness
Must all be veiled, while he that reads, divines’ ‘Nor let them punish me with loss of rhyme,/ Who plainly say, My God, My King’
According to Augustine, why does ‘God does not count as thou dost’?
A: Suggesting a difference in human vs divine perspectives or valuations.
For what kind of emotions is music considered better suited?
A: For singular, rather than mixed or ambiguous emotions.
In ‘When to her lute,’ how is feeling conveyed through the art?
A: The emotional responsiveness of artist and audience animates or devastates the instrument and listener.
What musical technique ‘revives’ the song in ‘When to her lute’?
Melisma ‘revives’ (the stretching of a syllable over multiple notes) - Orpheus
What is notable about the repeated sighs in ‘When to her lute’?
A: She sighs three times, with four quaver rests, mirroring emotional expression.
How does the poem use mirroring in melody and text?
A: The melody same for ‘her/my sighs,’ in separate verses echoing the emotional state.
What is the difference between musica speculativa and musica practica?
A: Musica speculativa is fixed, perfect number-based music, while musica practica is time-bound and performed.
What is the ultimate message of ‘Tune thy Musicke’?
A: Emphasizing simplicity, inner truth, emotional and spiritual expression, and love as the ultimate devotion over outward show.
What does the line ‘And as her lute doth live or die / Let by her passion, so must I’ convey?
Imperative ‘must’
The speaker’s emotional and existential state is entirely dependent on the woman’s feelings, as expressed through her music.
What musical interval is used in ‘As any challenged echo clear’, and what does it symbolize?
A: A perfect 4th—often associated with reaching, longing, or devotional emotion.
How does the phrase ‘strings do break’ reflect musically and emotionally?
A: It drops a triad with a dotted rhythm; the bass echoes a falling motion, contrasting with the earlier rising octave in ‘doth in highest notes appear’, signalling a shift in emotional energy.
What is the dominant meter of the poem, and where does it deviate?
A: The poem is in iambic tetrameter, but it deviates with choriambs like ‘with her sighs’ and heavy stresses in ‘the strings do break’, emphasizing emotional rupture.
