Word: populares
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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FRANCE had the French Revolution. And soon after, France also had protracted historical arguments about the legacy of their popular revolt...
...ever since that less-than-earth-shattering rebellion--shot heard round the world, or no shot heard round the world--left-wing historians in America have spent their time trying to create a legacy worth fighting for. Charles Beard attempted to play up the American revolution as a popular struggle in his Economic Interpretation of the Constitution--which purported to find a self-interested wealthy class responsible for fashioning the Constitution, thus betraying the spirit...
...cultural behavior was genuinely different in the early to mid-19th century. Urban workers did spend their free time listening to theater performances which included magic tricks, physical comedy and Shakespearean soliloquys. Bands larger than current ensembles but smaller than full-fledged orchestras would perform both classical music and popular ditties. In the case of Shakespeare, Levine cleverly demonstrates how well people knew the Bard's works by providing examples of the careful, complex parodies of Shakespeare's plays that were performed in the mid-19th century. The jokes evidence a public familiarity with Shakespeare that would send a frisson...
...popular for all the wrong reasons: because of the afterpieces and the divertissements that surrounded his plays; because the people wanted to see great actors who in turn insisted on performing Shakespeare to demonstrate their abilities; because his plays were presented in altered, simplied versions; because of his bombast, crudities, and sexual allusions rather than his poetry or sophistication; because of almost anything other than his dramatic genius...
...creators as Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Verdi, whom they had enjoyed in various formats for much of the 19th century, but also that the rigid cultural categories, once they were in place, made it so difficult for so long for so many to understand the value and importance of the popular art forms that were all around them...