DOCSLIB.ORG

Taming the Gypsy: How French Romantics Recaptured a Past

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Taming the Gypsy: How French Romantics Recaptured a Past Taming the Gypsy: How French Romantics Recaptured a Past The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Carter, Elizabeth Lee. 2014. Taming the Gypsy: How French Romantics Recaptured a Past. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:13064929 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Taming the Gypsy: How French Romantics Recaptured a Past A dissertation presented by Elizabeth Carter Hanrahan to The Department of Romance Languages and Literatures in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of Romance Languages and Literatures Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts September 2014 © 2014 – Elizabeth Carter Hanrahan All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Professor Janet Beizer Elizabeth Carter Hanrahan Taming the Gypsy: How French Romantics Recaptured a Past Abstract In this dissertation, I examine the evolution of the Gypsy trope in Romantic French literature at a time when nostalgia became a powerful aesthetic and political tool used by varying sides of an ideological war. Long considered a transient outsider who did not view time or privilege the past in the same way Europeans did, the Gypsy, I argue, became a useful way for France’s writers to contain and tame the transience they felt interrupted nostalgia’s attempt to recapture a lost past. My work specifically looks at the development of this trope within a thirty-year period that begins in 1823, just before Charles X became France’s last Bourbon king, and ends just after Louis-Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France in 1852. Beginning with Quentin Durward (1823), Walter Scott’s first historical novel about France, and the French novel that looked to it for inspiration, Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris (1831), I show how the Gypsy became a character that communicated a fear that France was recklessly forgetting and destroying the monuments and narratives that had long preserved its pre-revolutionary past. While these novels became models in how nostalgia could be deployed to seduce France back into a relationship with a particular past, I also look at how the Gypsy trope is transformed some fifteen years later when nostalgia for Napoleon nearly leads France into two international conflicts and eventually traps the French into what George Sand called a dangerous “bail avec le passé.” In new readings of Prosper Mérimée’s Carmen (1845) and iii George Sand’s La Filleule (1853), I argue that both authors personify the dangers of recapturing the past, albeit in two very different ways. While Mérimée makes nostalgia and the Gypsy accomplices, George Sand gives France an admirable Gypsy heroine, a young woman who offers readers a way out of nostalgia’s viscous circle. I conclude by arguing that nostalgia and this Romantic trope found their way back into France at the dawn of a new millennium, and the Gypsy has once again been typecast in art and politics as deviant for refusing to dwell in or on the past. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements………………………………………………………….……………… vi Introduction……………………………………………………………………..…………… 1 Chapter One…………………………………………………………………………………18 The Literary Gypsy’s French Bonne Aventure Toward the Nineteenth Century Chapter Two…………………………………………………………………………………55 From Hayraddin to Esmeralda: How Victor Hugo Unpacked Walter Scott’s Gift to France Chapter Three…………………………………………………………………………...…103 The Danger in Claiming Carmen as Homeland: Mérimée’s Warning to France Chapter Four…………………………………………………………………………….…147 George Sand’s La Filleule: When the Gypsy Becomes France’s Path to the Future Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………..…193 A Late Twentieth-Century Resurgence of a Nineteenth-Century Plot Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………..…204 v Acknowledgements The completion of this project would not have been possible without the encouragement and patient support of friends, family and colleagues who helped me strike out on the many adventures, academic and other, that led to the fleshing out of my first thoughts on the Gypsy in Romantic French literature. It is with a twinge of nostalgia that I thank Anne McCall, whose early guidance helped me onto la bonne piste. It was her enthusiasm for this project that pushed me to continue, even when the winds of a hurricane tried to blow it off course in 2005. I also owe much to the faculty I knew at Tulane University between the years of 2002 and 2005, and to Ian Hancock who allowed me to sift through the literature, movies and other important historical and cultural documents he has compiled in the Romani Archives. It is also thanks to the hospitality of Harvard’s Romance Languages and Literature Department that I found a new intellectual home in 2005 and Janet Beizer, whose guidance through this sometimes overwhelming journey is much appreciated. I was also lucky enough to cross intellectual paths with Verena Conley, whose mentoring emphasized the importance of opening the borders of this study to more than one time, space and medium, forcing it to speak a language that transcends nineteenth-century French literature. I am also thankful to Frannie Lindsay for all of her precious advice and help through the many administration quandaries and quagmires that come with completing and turning in a dissertation. Through trips to Bourges, La Chatre, Paris, the Camargue, Strasbourg, Reims and Spain, I have been accompanied and assisted by many friends eager to help me understand what was playing out in these texts. My enduring gratitude goes to Charles Hall, Veronique vi Philippe, Anmol Mehra, Georgina Loya Gomez, Natalia Byrdina, and many, many others. The friends I made at Dartmouth’s 2011 Institute of French Cultural Studies were also important to this intellectual journey, so I thank them, especially Lawrence Kritzman, for taking precious time to chat about and think through time and its place in French culture and writing. I owe much to my mother, Frances Parish Carter, who has always reminded me that finishing a journey is just as gratifying as beginning one. And of course, I could never have done this without the love and support of my best friend and husband, Jeffrey Hanrahan, who is always quick to remind me that the past is the past and that the future is here. vii Introduction France made international news in September 2010 after an internal memo from the Minister of the Interior was leaked to Le Monde, and Sarkozy’s detailed plan to rid France of more than 300 Roma camps was revealed to the world. This expulsion, as the August memo states, would be different from previous, less successful attempts to rid France of its Roma population. Instead of simply asking camps to pick up and leave, which the memo complains only leads to the dispersion or displacement of Roma communities, it calls for camps to be torn down and their residents sent back to their country of origin. Roma who are “non-expulsables” (those the reader can assume to be French) would have to deal with France’s court system which, the memo states, should prevent them from setting up illegal camps again. In the following weeks, France’s gendarmerie and police successfully followed through with the memo’s orders, escorting numerous Roma families to France’s borders with one-way tickets home to their supposed countries of origin.1 French intellectuals and human rights organizations denounced Sarkozy’s mass deportation as a sad attempt to gain voter support from the xenophobic far right. However, they failed to ask why the French president announced his plans to expulse the Roma in a speech addressing the growing unrest in France’s banlieus, peripheral urban spaces where first, second and sometimes third generation immigrant populations have been consigned since the 1960s. If one revisits the July 30, 2010 speech where Sarkozy first announced his plans to rid France of its Roma population, it becomes clear that the president’s decision has little to 1 In many cases, they were sent to Bulgaria or Romania, two countries that are now members of the European Union and whose citizens should have the right to travel freely through the EU. 1 do with the Roma themselves.2 In fact, Sarkozy’s speech came shortly after two dozen or so young men from Villeneuve, one of Grenoble’s troubled banlieues, spilled out of their cité and threatened the “security” of those living in the city center. The Grenoble riots began on July 17, 2010 as a protest to police shooting and killing one of Villeneuve’s residents, Karim Boudouda, whose family, friends and neighbors denounced the act as yet another example of police violence toward France’s Maghreb and beur communities. But as the riots turned violent, escalating from burning cars to shoot-outs with police, the French began to ask themselves if the Grenoble riots were not a frightening repetition of the émeutes that shook France for three weeks in October and early November 2005 – riots that began in Clichy- sous-Bois, but quickly turned into a nationwide revolt of France’s young and frustrated banlieue population. 3 In his attempt to give meaning to the Grenoble riots, Sarkozy opened his speech by placing blame not on France’s police or current administration, but on the parents of the wayward youth who failed to enforce what he believes are the defining valeurs of French society. As he put it, La délinquance actuelle ne provient pas d’un mal être comme je l’entends dire trop souvent: elle résulte d’un mépris pour les valeurs fondamentales de notre société.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • June 1962 Acknowledgments
    A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF FIVE POEMS BY ALFRED DE VIGNY "MOISE," "LA MAISON DU BERGER," "LA COLERE DE SAMSON," "LE MONT DES OLIVIERS," AND "LA MORT DU LOUP" A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF ATLANTA UNIVERSITY IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS BY ELAINE JOY C. RUSSELL DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH ATLANTA, GEORGIA JUNE 1962 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In the preparation of this thesis I have received generous as sistance from many persons, and it is my wish to acknowledge their kind efforts. I am indebted to Doctor Benjamin F. Hudson, Chairman, Department of French, Atlanta University, to Mrs. Jacqueline Brimmer, Professor, Morehouse College, and to Mrs. Billie Geter Thomas, Head, Modern Language Department, Spelman College, for their kind and help ful suggestions. In addition to my professors, I wish to thank the Library staff, especially Mrs. Annabelle M. Jarrett, for all the kind assistance which I have received from them. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ±± Chapter I. INTRODUCTION ! II. THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ROMANTIC THEMES 5 III. THE FUNCTION OF THE POET 21 IV. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ALFRED DE VIGNI AS REVEALED IN: "LA MAISON DU BERGER, •' AND "LA COLERE DE SAMSON" 30 V. THE PHILOSOPHY OF ALFRED DE VIGNY AS REVEALED IN: »LE MONT DES OLIVIERS,» AND "LA. MORT DU LOUP" £2 Conclusion 5j^ BIBLIOGRAPHY 57 iii CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Each literaiy movement develops its favorite themes. Love, death, religion, nature and nationalism became the great themes of the romantic period. The treatment of these themes by the precursors of romanticism was later interpreted and developed by the major romantic poets, Alphonse de Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset and Alfred de Vigny.
    [Show full text]
  • Before the Forties
    Before The Forties director title genre year major cast USA Browning, Tod Freaks HORROR 1932 Wallace Ford Capra, Frank Lady for a day DRAMA 1933 May Robson, Warren William Capra, Frank Mr. Smith Goes to Washington DRAMA 1939 James Stewart Chaplin, Charlie Modern Times (the tramp) COMEDY 1936 Charlie Chaplin Chaplin, Charlie City Lights (the tramp) DRAMA 1931 Charlie Chaplin Chaplin, Charlie Gold Rush( the tramp ) COMEDY 1925 Charlie Chaplin Dwann, Alan Heidi FAMILY 1937 Shirley Temple Fleming, Victor The Wizard of Oz MUSICAL 1939 Judy Garland Fleming, Victor Gone With the Wind EPIC 1939 Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh Ford, John Stagecoach WESTERN 1939 John Wayne Griffith, D.W. Intolerance DRAMA 1916 Mae Marsh Griffith, D.W. Birth of a Nation DRAMA 1915 Lillian Gish Hathaway, Henry Peter Ibbetson DRAMA 1935 Gary Cooper Hawks, Howard Bringing Up Baby COMEDY 1938 Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant Lloyd, Frank Mutiny on the Bounty ADVENTURE 1935 Charles Laughton, Clark Gable Lubitsch, Ernst Ninotchka COMEDY 1935 Greta Garbo, Melvin Douglas Mamoulian, Rouben Queen Christina HISTORICAL DRAMA 1933 Greta Garbo, John Gilbert McCarey, Leo Duck Soup COMEDY 1939 Marx Brothers Newmeyer, Fred Safety Last COMEDY 1923 Buster Keaton Shoedsack, Ernest The Most Dangerous Game ADVENTURE 1933 Leslie Banks, Fay Wray Shoedsack, Ernest King Kong ADVENTURE 1933 Fay Wray Stahl, John M. Imitation of Life DRAMA 1933 Claudette Colbert, Warren Williams Van Dyke, W.S. Tarzan, the Ape Man ADVENTURE 1923 Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'Sullivan Wood, Sam A Night at the Opera COMEDY
    [Show full text]
  • Literary Encyclopedia: Theodore Watts-Dunton
    Literary Encyclopedia: Theodore Watts-Dunton Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832-1914) Jodie Matthews (University of Huddersfield) (Walter Theodore Watts-Dunton) Poet. Active 1874-1914 in England Theodore Watts-Dunton was known primarily as a literary critic for the Athenaeum and Encyclopaedia Britannica, for his romantic writing about the Romani people of England and Wales in poetry and prose fiction, and for his literary and artistic friendships, in particular his long-time support and companionship to the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. While successful in his own lifetime, his work has fallen out of favour and is no longer generally well-known. Walter Theodore Watts was born in 1832 in St. Ives, Huntingdonshire to John King Watts, a solicitor, and his East Anglian mother, Susannah Dunton. Theodore incorporated her surname into his own by deed poll in 1897. He was apparently enchanted by literature from a young age, with a formative experience being that of reading SpenserŸs Faerie Queen. Much is made by his biographer, Thomas St. E. Hake (son of the poet Thomas Gordon Hake), of the early influence of family members on the subjects that would later come to interest him, such as his maternal grandmotherŸs interest in Gypsies and Gypsy life. After attending school in Cambridge, he trained as a solicitor and practised in London. Watts-Dunton was over forty when he changed career and began to write seriously. He joined the Examiner in 1874 and then began to write anonymously for the Athenaeum the following year as a reviewer. His poems and other writings about Gypsies also appeared in this publication during his long career there.
    [Show full text]
  • ABSTRACT George Sand and Her Heroines: Boundary-Breaking
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
    [Show full text]
  • Metric System Units of Length
    Math 0300 METRIC SYSTEM UNITS OF LENGTH Þ To convert units of length in the metric system of measurement The basic unit of length in the metric system is the meter. All units of length in the metric system are derived from the meter. The prefix “centi-“means one hundredth. 1 centimeter=1 one-hundredth of a meter kilo- = 1000 1 kilometer (km) = 1000 meters (m) hecto- = 100 1 hectometer (hm) = 100 m deca- = 10 1 decameter (dam) = 10 m 1 meter (m) = 1 m deci- = 0.1 1 decimeter (dm) = 0.1 m centi- = 0.01 1 centimeter (cm) = 0.01 m milli- = 0.001 1 millimeter (mm) = 0.001 m Conversion between units of length in the metric system involves moving the decimal point to the right or to the left. Listing the units in order from largest to smallest will indicate how many places to move the decimal point and in which direction. Example 1: To convert 4200 cm to meters, write the units in order from largest to smallest. km hm dam m dm cm mm Converting cm to m requires moving 4 2 . 0 0 2 positions to the left. Move the decimal point the same number of places and in the same direction (to the left). So 4200 cm = 42.00 m A metric measurement involving two units is customarily written in terms of one unit. Convert the smaller unit to the larger unit and then add. Example 2: To convert 8 km 32 m to kilometers First convert 32 m to kilometers. km hm dam m dm cm mm Converting m to km requires moving 0 .
    [Show full text]
  • Nineteenth-Century French Challenges to the Liberal Image of Russia
    Ezequiel Adamovsky Russia as a Space of Hope: Nineteenth-century French Challenges to the Liberal Image of Russia Introduction Beginning with Montesquieu’s De l’esprit des lois, a particular perception of Russia emerged in France. To the traditional nega- tive image of Russia as a space of brutality and backwardness, Montesquieu now added a new insight into her ‘sociological’ otherness. In De l’esprit des lois Russia was characterized as a space marked by an absence. The missing element in Russian society was the independent intermediate corps that in other parts of Europe were the guardians of freedom. Thus, Russia’s back- wardness was explained by the lack of the very element that made Western Europe’s superiority. A similar conceptual frame was to become predominant in the French liberal tradition’s perception of Russia. After the disillusion in the progressive role of enlight- ened despotism — one must remember here Voltaire and the myth of Peter the Great and Catherine II — the French liberals went back to ‘sociological’ explanations of Russia’s backward- ness. However, for later liberals such as Diderot, Volney, Mably, Levesque or Louis-Philippe de Ségur the missing element was not so much the intermediate corps as the ‘third estate’.1 In the turn of liberalism from noble to bourgeois, the third estate — and later the ‘middle class’ — was thought to be the ‘yeast of freedom’ and the origin of progress and civilization. In the nineteenth century this liberal-bourgeois dichotomy of barbarian Russia (lacking a middle class) vs civilized Western Europe (the home of the middle class) became hegemonic in the mental map of French thought.2 European History Quarterly Copyright © 2003 SAGE Publications, London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi, Vol.
    [Show full text]
  • Les Références Antiques Et Modernes Dans Smarra
    Francis Claudon Université de Paris XII [email protected] Les Références antiques et modernes dans Smarra Abstract: Charles Nodier is often thought of as belonging to the “Frenetic School”, he is also perceived as an eccentric author, almost as a humorist, which therefore contrasts with the graveness of the major romantic authors, such as Hugo, Novalis or Shelley. Yet, upon taking a closer look, it becomes obvious that Nodier cultivated “horror”, that is a type of romanticism which would later come to be termed “Black Romanticism”. It is also true that this deeply erudite man very skillfully borrowed elements from various sources in order to create a literature of his own, tales which are his, and his only. In this respect, Nodier is an interesting author for comparative studies. Such is the interest of Smarra, Smarra which initially seems to be an imitation of Apuleius. Yet, when studying the antique text closely, it appears that the Latin author really screens another reference, Shakespeare, the allusions to whom are numerous and difficult to decrypt. The result, a juxtaposition of antiquity and modernity, creates a specific coloring, itself reminiscent of the work of the painter Füssli, who also adapted freely Shakespearian sources, adding to them a sort of neoclassic halo. The true charm of Smarra resides there; Nodier is neither an eccentric nor an amateur, his romanticism is very educated and situates him midway between the erudition of the Enlightenment and the illumination of Romanticism. Keywords: freneticism, influences, Shakespeare, Antiquity, painting. Résumé: On range volontiers Charles Nodier parmi les membres de l’école frénétique ; on le tient aussi pour un auteur fantaisiste, voire humoriste, qui trancherait donc avec le sérieux des « grands » romantiques (Hugo, Novalis, Shelley).
    [Show full text]
  • Géraldine Crahay a Thesis Submitted in Fulfilments of the Requirements For
    ‘ON AURAIT PENSÉ QUE LA NATURE S’ÉTAIT TROMPÉE EN LEUR DONNANT LEURS SEXES’: MASCULINE MALAISE, GENDER INDETERMINACY AND SEXUAL AMBIGUITY IN JULY MONARCHY NARRATIVES Géraldine Crahay A thesis submitted in fulfilments of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy in French Studies Bangor University, School of Modern Languages and Cultures June 2015 i TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract .................................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................... ix Declaration and Consent ........................................................................................................... xi Introduction: Masculine Ambiguities during the July Monarchy (1830‒48) ............................ 1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Theoretical Framework: Masculinities Studies and the ‘Crisis’ of Masculinity ............................. 4 Literature Overview: Masculinity in the Nineteenth Century ......................................................... 9 Differences between Masculinité and Virilité ............................................................................... 13 Masculinity during the July Monarchy ......................................................................................... 16 A Model of Masculinity:
    [Show full text]
  • The Life of George Borrow by Herbert Jenkins</H1>
    The Life of George Borrow by Herbert Jenkins The Life of George Borrow by Herbert Jenkins This etext was produced by David Price, email [email protected], from the 1912 John Murray edition. THE LIFE OF GEORGE BORROW by Herbert Jenkins PREFACE During the whole of Borrow's manhood there was probably only one period when he was unquestionably happy in his work and content with his surroundings. He may almost be said to have concentrated into the seven years (1833-1840) that he was employed by the British and Foreign Bible Society in Russia, Portugal and Spain, a lifetime's energy and resource. From an unknown hack-writer, who hawked about unsaleable translations of Welsh and Danish bards, a travelling tinker and a vagabond Ulysses, he became a person of considerable importance. His name was acclaimed with praise and enthusiasm at page 1 / 665 Bible meetings from one end of the country to the other. He developed an astonishing aptitude for affairs, a tireless energy, and a diplomatic resourcefulness that aroused silent wonder in those who had hitherto regarded him as a failure. His illegal imprisonment in Madrid nearly brought about a diplomatic rupture between Great Britain and Spain, and later his missionary work in the Peninsula was referred to by Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons as an instance of what could be achieved by courage and determination in the face of great difficulties. Those seven rich and productive years realised to the full the strange talents and unsuspected abilities of George Borrow's unique character.
    [Show full text]
  • 1,000 Films to See Before You Die Published in the Guardian, June 2007
    1,000 Films to See Before You Die Published in The Guardian, June 2007 http://film.guardian.co.uk/1000films/0,,2108487,00.html Ace in the Hole (Billy Wilder, 1951) Prescient satire on news manipulation, with Kirk Douglas as a washed-up hack making the most of a story that falls into his lap. One of Wilder's nastiest, most cynical efforts, who can say he wasn't actually soft-pedalling? He certainly thought it was the best film he'd ever made. Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (Tom Shadyac, 1994) A goofy detective turns town upside-down in search of a missing dolphin - any old plot would have done for oven-ready megastar Jim Carrey. A ski-jump hairdo, a zillion impersonations, making his bum "talk" - Ace Ventura showcases Jim Carrey's near-rapturous gifts for physical comedy long before he became encumbered by notions of serious acting. An Actor's Revenge (Kon Ichikawa, 1963) Prolific Japanese director Ichikawa scored a bulls-eye with this beautifully stylized potboiler that took its cues from traditional Kabuki theatre. It's all ballasted by a terrific double performance from Kazuo Hasegawa both as the female-impersonator who has sworn vengeance for the death of his parents, and the raucous thief who helps him. The Addiction (Abel Ferrara, 1995) Ferrara's comic-horror vision of modern urban vampires is an underrated masterpiece, full- throatedly bizarre and offensive. The vampire takes blood from the innocent mortal and creates another vampire, condemned to an eternity of addiction and despair. Ferrara's mob movie The Funeral, released at the same time, had a similar vision of violence and humiliation.
    [Show full text]
  • It Is Now Commonplace to Think of Preservation As Part of the State's
    It is now commonplace to think of preservation as part of the state’s responsibility to protect the public’s interests and welfare. But what happens when government fails to be a good steward of heritage, or worse, engages in its destruction? Activism, as a soft means of citizen oversight and influence in government, has become a central component of preservation. Victor Hugo shaped the role and the responsibilities of preservation activism through newspaper editorials such as these two calls to arms against “demolishers.” He fearlessly spoke truth to power, publishing scathing accusations of negligence and malfeasance against government bureaucrats and private developers for destroying beautiful historic buildings. The beauty of historic architecture was a public good, belonging to everyone and in need of protection. Hugo was born in Besançon, France, in 1802. His father was a military officer, and during Hugo’s childhood, years of political turmoil, his family moved frequently, including to Italy and Spain. He settled in Paris with his mother in 1812, where he developed his literary talents, publishing his first novel in 1825. Hugo’s numerous works of fiction and poetry increasingly took up social injustices, and, after being elected to the Academie Française over the objections of opponents of Romanticism, he became increasingly involved in national politics. His novel Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1831) helped inspire the restoration of Paris’s cathedral, and a renewed appreciation of Paris’s pre-Renaissance physiognomy. It was published a year after the establishment of the Comité des Arts, later transformed into the Commission de Monuments Historiques with Ludovic Vitet (1802-73) as Inspector General.
    [Show full text]
  • Exoticism and Auto-Exoticism in Opera and Operetta
    HStud 27 (2013)2, 291–311 DOI: 10.1556/HStud.27.2013.2.7 TURKS, HUNGARIANS, AND GYPSIES ON STAGE: EXOTICISM AND AUTO-EXOTICISM IN OPERA AND OPERETTA LYNN HOOKER Indiana University, IN, USA E-mail: [email protected] The tradition of European “classical music” has long evoked the exotic, and two of the most prominent exotic referents in that tradition are the Middle East, first and foremost the Turk, and the Hungarian Gypsy, raising the questions of how these “exotic” traditions are related, and what their comparison might tell us about the idea of musical exoticism more broadly. In this essay, I briefly survey the “Turkish style” and its use in Classical-period opera; discuss its replacement by Hungar- ian-Gypsy style in the nineteenth century; and finally examine the interesting juxta- position of Turkish and Hungarian-Gypsy topics in two fin-de-siècle Central Euro- pean operettas, Der Zigeunerbaron by the Austrian Johann Strauss Jr. and Gül baba by the Hungarian Jenõ Huszka. An examination of these works and their reception reveals fissures between the Viennese and Budapest versions of operettas featuring “exotic” topics and characters, and between the operetta industries in the two cities. These details offer a fascinating look at the dividing line between exoticism and auto-exoticism and at the significance of references to Turkish and Hungar- ian-Gypsy topics in the Central European cultural climate of this period – in short, a reconsideration of what it means to be Hungarian, and for whom. Keywords: Hungarian music, exoticism, auto-exoticism, Hungarian-Gypsy style, Turkish style (alla turca), operetta, Johann Strauss Jr., Jenõ Huszka The tradition of European “classical music” has long evoked the exotic: “linking [works] to some especially fascinating, attractive, or fearsome place: to an Else- where and, usually, to its inhabitants and their supposed inclinations and ways” (Locke, 2009, 1).
    [Show full text]