Penn Press Log

Why Sing a Poem? Paul Laurence Dunbar’s "A Corn Song" in J19

A new article on the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s musical setting of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “A Corn Song” appears in the inaugural issue of J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists. Here, the author of the article, Tsitsi Jaji, performs the the song and discusses how she came to sing it as part of her scholarship.

A Corn Song by PennPress

Why Sing a Poem?

In my article for the cluster on American poetics of the nineteenth century I begin with a series of questions: “What can we learn about reading poetry on and off the page from musical composers’ settings of poetry in art songs? How do art songs work as a form of poetics? How do we allow for a composer’s style and resist facile notions of meaning in music while also recognizing the thoughtful textual analyses in art songs?” How I came to care about these questions, and why the Afro-British composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s 1897 musical setting of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “A Corn Song” proved such a fun way to engage these questions is the story I invite you to consider here.

Dance Opens Window to Cervantes Play for Penn Press Intern

In August, our summer interns take over the blog in a series of guest posts. This week, intern Grace Molloy shares the connections she discovered between her interest in dance and a forthcoming paperback release of Miguel de Cervantes'  "The Bagnios of Algiers" and "The Great Sultana": Two Plays of Captivity, edited and translated by Barbara Fuchs and Aaron J. Ilika.

A few months ago, I sleepily stumbled across my college campus to sit in a dance studio and watch historical dances projected against a chalkboard for my Dance History class. To some college students, this may sound like a nap trap, but the flowing movements of Loie Fuller and the energetic taps of the Nicholas Brothers in “Stormy Weather” captivated me. The one thing these different dancers have in common is the influence of historical dances from which their styles derived. Thanks to these lessons in performance history, the dances and movement elements in Barbara Fuchs’ and Aaron J. Ilika’s translation of Miguel de Cervantes’ “The Great Sultana” drew me into the culture of the seventeenth-century Spanish play.

In the introduction to the translation, Fuchs and Ilika provide Cervantes’ description of the evolution of theater in Spain. The famous author tells us about a playwright who “invented machines, clouds, thunder and lightning, challenges and battles.” These showy elements were reminiscent of the extravagance I learned about in the sixteenth-century French court ballets, which contained other artistic elements such as opera, poetry, jousts, and even parades. Additionally, a footnote of “The Great Sultana” states that a dance often concluded Spanish plays of this period; this is similar to the grand ballet, a participatory dance to conclude the court ballets. Although the French court ballets were still developing in the early 1600s and had not yet reached Spain, the similarities and historical connections I found between these performance arts were exciting.

There are a few specific dances referenced in “The Great Sultana:” the saraband, zambapalo, chacona, pésame dello, folía, and bergamasca.

Fuchs and Ilika describe the bergamasca as “a lusty sixteenth-century dance depicting the reputedly awkward manners of the inhabitants of Bergamo, in northern Italy, where it supposedly originated.” If you watch the video above, you can notice the sometimes stiff and tentative movements of this dance.

To escape death, Madrigal, a character in the play, promises to teach the Ottoman Sultan’s elephant to speak Turkish in ten years. He references the bergamasca when he is describing the languages that he use in the elephant’s lessons. Clearly, Cervantes uses the term “language” loosely here, but it is unsurprising that a man named Madrigal would consider music and dance to be a form of communication. While later discussing what he and the other musicians should sing for the Great Sultana, Madrigal also references the saraband, a slow, Spanish waltz. The remaining dances mentioned are “racy and often censored in Spain at the time,” so I found it surprising that Madrigal knew of them and would suggest singing them for such an honored guest. However, watching the above video of the chacona, it is amusing to see what the seventeeth-century Spaniards considered racy.

Although it is difficult to find modern performances of many of those dances, they have served as essential stepping-stones in dance history. It pleased me to discover these cultural details in Fuchs’ and Ilika’s translation of “The Great Sultana” because they truly bought the text and the time period to life. As Madrigal says, “Spanish women are born dancers straight from their mothers’ wombs.” Cervantes clearly viewed dance as an important aspect of seventeenth-century Spanish culture, and Fuchs and Ilika have preserved this in the translation.

Grace Molloy is a rising junior at Kenyon College. She is studying Comparative Literature, focusing on poetry in Spanish, English, and religious texts.

A Feast of Creatures -- Now in Paperback

A Feast of Creatures: Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Songs
Edited and translated by Craig Williamson
248 pages | 6 x 9
Paper 2011 | ISBN 978-0-8122-1129-0 | $19.95 | £13.00

"Captivating."--Choice

In A Feast of Creatures, Craig Williamson combines his training as a medievalist, anthropologist, and literary critic with his talent as a translator and poet. Here he recasts nearly 100 Old English riddles of the Exeter Book into a modern verse mode that yokes the cadences of Aelfric with the sprung rhythm of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Read more . . . 

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Saunders Robinson.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.

Penn Press Staff Members Dispel Darkness from a "Tower of Song"

Penn Press staff practice many ways of dispelling darkness besides publishing books and journals. Some of us are accomplished musicians. If you want proof and you're looking for something to do in Philadelphia this Saturday, hear Assistant Editor Caroline Winschel and summer intern Laura Feibush perform in "Tower of Song: An Evening of Music to Dispel Darkness." This choral event will be held at the First Unitarian Church at 2125 Chestnut Street, a church which is also known as a punk and rock show venue.

Visit the Tower of Song page for details.

Name that Zoot Contest: Week Three

The answer to last week's question was Duke Ellington. Ellington was the major creative force behind the musical revue Jump for Joy, which featured zoot suits in all their splendor.

Julia V. Hendrickson of Illinois is the latest winner in the Name that Zoot contest. Her entry was selected from all of the correct submissions, so she'll receive a copy of Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style by Kathy Peiss, plus a chance at the grand prize.

And now, for round three of Name That Zoot, we'll follow the zoot suit across the Atlantic from North America to Europe. Like jazz music and dance, the zoot suit had many devotees in France. During World War II, zoot fashion took on political overtones as zoot suits came to be seen as a rebuke to the Vichy regime.

What did French zoot suiters and jazz fanatics call themselves?

If you know the answer, please send it to answer to pressmkt at pobox dot upenn dot edu by 12:00 midnight on July 26, 2011. If you answer correctly, you will be entered in a raffle to win a copy of Zoot Suit. Not only that, you will be eligible to win the grand prize, a gift certificate for ReVamp.

The winner will be announced on July 27 and notified by email.

Click here for complete contest rules.

Name that Zoot Contest: Week Two

Congratulations to Pinchus Roth of New York, week one's winner. Last week's question was a killer diller, but Roth rose to the occasion. The name of the actor who graces the cover of Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style, by Kathy Peiss, is Germán Valdéz, creator of the "Gringo lingo" speaking character Tin Tan. Roth went so far as to send in Valdez's entire name, Germán Genaro Cipriano Gomez Valdés Castillo. He'll receive a copy of Zoot Suit and a chance at the grand prize.

And now, for round two of Name That Zoot.

In 1941, a musical revue called Jump for Joy opened in Los Angeles. In one of the show's sketches, three comedians visit a tailor and jive about suits "with a reet pleat and a stuff cuff and a drape shape, shoulders extended, eighteen as intended; padding--Gibralter; shiny as a halter."

Name the composer who created this hip, stereotype-smashing show.

If you can correctly name the composer, you will be entered in a raffle to win a copy of Zoot Suit. Not only that, you will be eligible to win the grand prize, a gift certificate for ReVamp.

Send the answer to pressmkt at pobox dot upenn dot edu by 12:00 midnight on July 19, 2011. The winner will be announced on July 20 and notified by email.

Click here for complete contest rules.

It Don't Mean One Thing

Penn Press intern and social dancer Hannah Ehlenfeldt shares her thoughts on swing dance fashions past and present. Styles from the 1930s and 40s were revived in the 1990s, then swirled up in ironic nostalgia in the 2010s.

“After listening to editors bemoan modern youth’s infatuation with jitterbug and swing, Orlando Suero, a seventeen-year-old office boy at the New York Times wrote an essay in ‘swinguage’ to explain the phenomenon: ‘You feel something come over you that cannot be controlled, your heart feels alive and gay, you jump with jive.’” – from Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style by Kathy Peiss

Orlando Suero says it well. Ever since I started swing dancing in my first few months at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, the lindy hop has been a growing passion for me, and I can tell you that there’s something really special about the energy, the playfulness, and the musicality of the dance. It makes you feel joyful and alive.

Yet another thing that I love about swing dancing is that it has such a rich history—a history that incorporates jazz musicians, performance groups, film appearances, and even styles of dress. When I learned that I would be working with Kathy Peiss’ book Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style for my Penn Press internship, I was especially excited because I knew that the style of dress known as a zoot suit had associations with swing and jitterbug.

I was a little bit familiar with the zoot suit before reading Peiss’ book—I had seen a few dramatic dressers wearing them at events, and I knew about the zoot suit riots—but Peiss’ book enabled me to delve much deeper into its rich, mysterious history. I learned that although zoot suits originated among African Americans, the style soon spread to Mexican Americans and even white youths across the country and across the globe. Zoot suits resonated with very different groups of people, and they had different meanings for each individual. While zoot suits were a symbol of resistance for some, for others they were simply an appealing aesthetic, a way to be hip instead of square. In the end, we cannot assign one clear-cut meaning to them.

What really amazes me, however, is how the zoot suit continues to take on new meanings. When I think of zoot suits, I think of the swing dance revival of the 1990s, and I picture silly dance moves like the pretzel and the egg beater. To illustrate, I’ll leave you with this clip of two of my favorite modern lindy hoppers: Andrew Thigpen and Karen Turman. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fI8XwYeXR0A

With this silly performance designed to poke fun at and celebrate the swing dance revival, they give you a little bit of an idea of how contemporary swing dancers might think of the zoot suit today.

 Hannah Ehlehfeldt is a senior at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Hopefully she knows that Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Back to the Future--the movies spoofed in the YouTube dance video-- were released in the 1980s, not in the 1990s.

Penn Press Medieval Studies Book Inspires Philadelphia Metal/Hardcore Punk/Noise Band

It's no joke. The regional offshoot of The Onion's A.V. Club mentions a Penn Press book on medieval history in a review of an album by Philadelphia's "metal, hardcore punk, and noise" band, Satanized. Apparently, Other Middle Ages: Witnesses At The Margins Of Medieval Society by Michael Goodich, inspired the lyrics of the song "Arnaud de Vernoille." This according to A.V. Club Philadelphia music critic Elliot Sharp. Sharp writes:

The lyrics to “Arnaud de Verniolle,” the second track on Technical Virginity, while indecipherable, are inspire by Jacques Fournier’s inquisitorial register as found in Michael Goodich’s book, Other Middle Ages: Witnesses At The Margins Of Medieval Society.While the Bishop of Pamiers from 1318-1325, Fournier interrogated hundreds of French peasants in order to expose and punish Cathar heretics. One of the men punished was Arnaud de Verniolle, a subdeacon initially investigated for impersonating a priest and illegally hearing confessions. Further probing revealed Fournier was a homosexual guilty of sodomy, and he spent the rest of his life in prison. He was, one might say, Satanized.

We invite medievalists to listen to the song "Arnaud de Verniolle" and see if they agree with the Satanized interpretation of history.

Name that Zoot Contest: Week One

It's time to play Name that Zoot, the best university press contest, north, south, east, or west.

Take a look at the man on the cover of Zoot Suit: The Enigmatic Career of an Extreme Style, by Kathy Peiss. If you can correctly name the person on the cover, you will be entered in a raffle to win a copy of Zoot Suit. Not only that, you will be eligible to win the grand prize, a gift certificate for ReVamp.

Stumped? Here's a clue. Tin Tan.

Send the answer to pressmkt at pobox dot upenn dot edu by 12:00 midnight on July 12, 2011. The winner will be announced on July 13 and notified by email.

Click here for complete contest rules.

Sound, Space, And The City--Now Available

Sound, Space, and the City: Civic Performance in Downtown Los Angeles
Marina Peterson
184 pages | 6 x 9 | 14 illus.
Cloth 2010 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4234-8 | $39.95 | £26.00
A volume in the City in the Twenty-First Century series

In Sound, Space, and the City, Marina Peterson explores the processes—from urban renewal to the performance of ethnicity and the experiences of audiences—through which civic space is created at music performances in downtown Los Angeles.

Read more . . .

Book reviewers: to request a press copy, contact Ellen Trachtenberg.
Educators: to request an exam copy for course use consideration, click here.