Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 The Cultural and Religious Prehistories
- 2 Tolerance, Translation, and Acceptance: Goethe's and Mendelssohn's Voices in European Cultural Discourse to ca. 1850
- 3 Reality and Illusion, Past and Present: Goethe and the Walpurgisnacht
- 4 The Composition, Revision, and Publication of Mendelssohn's Die erste Walpurgisnacht
- 5 The Sources, Structure, and Narrative of Mendelssohn's Walpurgisnacht Settings
- 6 At the Crossroads of Identity: Critical and Artistic Responses to Goethe's and Mendelssohn's Walpurgisnacht Treatments
- 7 Performing Identity and Alterity: Die erste Walpurgisnacht Then and Now
- Appendix A: Original Texts of Select Lengthy Documents Originally Written in Languages other than English
- Notes
- Selected Bibliograohy
- Index of Works by Goethe and Mendelssohn
- General Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
1 - The Cultural and Religious Prehistories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- 1 The Cultural and Religious Prehistories
- 2 Tolerance, Translation, and Acceptance: Goethe's and Mendelssohn's Voices in European Cultural Discourse to ca. 1850
- 3 Reality and Illusion, Past and Present: Goethe and the Walpurgisnacht
- 4 The Composition, Revision, and Publication of Mendelssohn's Die erste Walpurgisnacht
- 5 The Sources, Structure, and Narrative of Mendelssohn's Walpurgisnacht Settings
- 6 At the Crossroads of Identity: Critical and Artistic Responses to Goethe's and Mendelssohn's Walpurgisnacht Treatments
- 7 Performing Identity and Alterity: Die erste Walpurgisnacht Then and Now
- Appendix A: Original Texts of Select Lengthy Documents Originally Written in Languages other than English
- Notes
- Selected Bibliograohy
- Index of Works by Goethe and Mendelssohn
- General Index
- Eastman Studies in Music
Summary
Nature can have little unity for savages. It is a Walpurgis-nacht procession, a checkered play of light and shadow, a medley of impish and elfish friendly and inimical powers.
William James, A Pluralistic UniverseKind or species: A novel? No, certainly not: a witches' Sabbath of the spirit, a gigantic “Capriccio,” a phenomenal cerebral Walpurgisnacht.
Stefan Zweig, “Anmerkung zum Ulysses”Throughout Western European spheres of influence the night of April 30 is home to a conspicuously secular celebration. It is known in Germany as die Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis Night), alternatively in the United Kingdom and the United States as Beltane or May Eve; in Italy as la notte di Valpurga, Beltane, or Calendimaggio; in Spain as la noche de Walpurgis, and in France as La nuit de Walpurgis or simply La Walpurgis. After Christmas and Easter it is one of the major holidays in Finland and Sweden (VapunAatto and Valborgsmässoafton, respectively). Its origins antedate written records, and it is host to a wide variety of popular and commercial revelries. Like its autumn counterpart, Halloween, it is practiced today primarily in folk and popular culture. Also like Halloween, the Walpurgis Night celebrates magic and the supernatural, the profane alternative to the predominantly monotheistic cultures of mainstream society. And it, too, is home to countless ghost stories and a wide variety of folk tales populated by witches, werewolves, and other supernatural beings.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Mendelssohn, Goethe, and the Walpurgis NightThe Heathen Muse in European Culture, 1700–1850, pp. 1 - 29Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2007