Project Directors:
Massimo Fusillo, University of L’Àquila
Alessandro Metlica, University of Padova
Helga Mitterbauer, Université libre de Bruxelles
Birgit Neumann, University of Düsseldorf
More than any other time in modern European history, the period that roughly coincides with the seventeenth century and falls under the definition of ‘the Baroque’ was crucial in shaping the modern idea of ‘mediascape’ and in constructing the system of interrelations between the arts that is still active today. Nevertheless, the very notion of ‘mediascape’, together with the hermeneutical tools provided by intermedial studies, have seldom been applied to the study of the Baroque.
This intermedial comparative literary of the baroque will focus on visuality, including ekphrasis as a genre, but also visual effects so beloved by poets and narrators, common themes in painting and literature (metamorphosis, doubling), and other rhetorical strategies; on music, including the opera as mixed genre, but also other forms of exchange; and finally on performance, since the baroque has a special predilection for feast, ephemeral happenings, and new theatrical practices. It will include a first volume on Forms, Genres and Media, and a second on Figures, Themes and Key Words, both enriched by a series of case studies. The entire work will constantly deal with the reprisal of baroque aesthetics in contemporary neo-baroque and in a global context.