Music Research and Composition Works
Title
The lamentations of Don Juan and Macbeth
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2005
Journal
PMLA
Volume
120
Issue
5
URL with Digital Object Identifier
10.1632/003081205x73371
Abstract
This article investigates how eighteenth-century writers used the figure of the castrato as a privileged metaphor for the negotiation of class conflicts, gender concepts, and the nature of art. A reading of Johann Jakob Wilhelm Heinse's novel Hildegard von Hohenthal shows that Heinse uses the character of the (fake) castrato to celebrate the artificiality of gender, desire, and art, but his novel leaves class boundaries intact. Friedrich Schiller's poem "Kastraten und Männer" attacks aristocratic supremacy but naturalizes gender codes and equates masculinity and art. (EK) © 2005 BY THE MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA.
