The Romantic myth of Bohemia originated in the early nineteenth
century as a way of describing the new conditions faced by artists
and writers when the previous system of aristocratic patronage
collapsed in the wake of the Age of Revolution. Without the patron
system, the artist was free to move around, to seek an audience
wherever fortune beckoned. This marketing model likening the
artist's vagabond career to the "gypsy" life helps to explain part
of the bohemian myth, but not all of it. Most bohemians have scant
interest in commercial gain and are not so itinerant after all,
confining their movements to down-market urban neighbourhoods where
the rent is cheap and the morals are loose. This Very Short
Introduction traces the myth of Bohemia through its various
fictional manifestations, from Henry Murger's novel Scenes of
Bohemian Life (1851) and Giacomo Puccini's opera La Bohème (1896)
to Aki Kaurismäki's film La vie de Bohème (1992), and Jonathan
Larson's musical Rent (1996). It goes on to examine the history of
different bohemian communities, including those in the Latin
Quarter of Paris, the Schwabing section of Munich, and the
Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York. David Weir also
considers the politics of Bohemia and traces the careers of the
artists Gustave Courbet and Pablo Picasso and the great chanteuses
Yvette Guilbert, Fréhel, and Edith Piaf in the Montmartre
neighborhood of Paris, where a rich tradition of popular culture
indebted to Bohemia also developed. Weir concludes with a
discussion of the legacy of Bohemia today as something outworn and
dying, an exhausted tradition that somehow continues.
General
| Imprint: |
Oxford UniversityPress
|
| Country of origin: |
United States |
| Series: |
VERY SHORT INTRODUCTIONS |
| Release date: |
June 2023 |
| Authors: |
David Weir
(Distinguished Visiting Scholar; Professor Emeritus of Comparative Literature)
|
| Dimensions: |
175 x 112 x 10mm (L x W x T) |
| Format: |
Paperback
|
| Pages: |
160 |
| ISBN-13: |
978-0-19-753829-6 |
| Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
|
| LSN: |
0-19-753829-0 |
| Barcode: |
9780197538296 |
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