Music Imageries of Humanism 1500-SDN-MIH

The topic of the classes are the musical imageries of humanists in the modern era. The subject of our interest is the writings of representatives of the intellectual elites of Europe (especially Silesia) who commented on music. Authors were selected who played a key role in the process of forming the culture of European humanism; however, their narratives bring a lot of new content, both to the discourse of musicology and related disciplines, driven by the need to understand the sources of cultural history. The main aim of the classes is to show how music was perceived and described by representatives of various artes, participating in various ways in the cultural tradition of European humanism.
The proposed work method is joint reading, analysis and interpretation of selected source texts taken from the writings of European and Silesian humanists. Such studies require the use of a hermeneutic method, adequate to phenomena that have the status of a cultural phenomenon. We want to organize the reconstructed musical worldview of humanists according to the method proposed by Karl Mannheim of research on generations, understood as specific human communities taking an active part in the accumulation, creation and transmission of cultural heritage. However, the representatives of subsequent generations are the most creative individuals who, in their narratives, reveal the need for self-staging, self-referentialization and self-staging: features that are particularly symptomatic of the culture of European humanism.
The subject of the classes is the reading, analysis and interpretation of selected source texts by twelve humanists - representatives of subsequent generations. Selected quotes will be shared with students during classes. Basic knowledge of Latin and German is recommended, enabling better understanding of the presented content and active participation in the discussion.