Date of Submission
Spring 2022
Academic Program
Music
Project Advisor 1
Karen Raizen
Abstract/Artist's Statement
On a London stage in 1733, Zoroastro transforms a forest into a horrible cave. He performs this magical act to prepare to return the sanity of Orlando, a man who has gone mad from love. This scene from George Frederic Handel’s opera Orlando is not representative of most opera of its time, but these fantastical elements are preceded by a long tradition of the depiction of magic in Europe beginning in the Medieval period. In this paper, I will be tracing the narrative of magical Eastern character archetypes through the lens of European perception. I will focus on the culture of Medieval Arabic Translation, Italian epic Crusade narratives, and finally George Frederic Handel’s opera adaptations of these epic texts.
Open Access Agreement
On-Campus only
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Agnew, Erica L., "Magic from Toledo to London: The Magical Eastern Archetype in Medieval Arabic Translation, Italian Epic, and Handel's London Operas" (2022). Senior Projects Spring 2022. 9.
https://digitalcommons.bard.edu/senproj_s2022/9
This work is protected by a Creative Commons license. Any use not permitted under that license is prohibited.
Bard Off-campus DownloadBard College faculty, staff, and students can login from off-campus by clicking on the Off-campus Download button and entering their Bard username and password.