'A present for the ladies': Ovid, montaigne, and the redemption of Purcell's Dido

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Abstract

The influence of Ovid and Montaigne on the creation of Purcell's Dido and Aeneasis reconsidered in the context of A Present for the Ladies, a 'historical vindication of the female sex' by the librettist Nahum Tate (1692), and its literary sources. I propose that Tate's Dido can be understood as an elaborate defence of his heroine, one that is indebted far more to Ovid than to Virgil, endowing the heroine with the neoStoic virtue and resolve associated with the preVirgilian version of the Dido legend. Purcell's setting of the lament emphasizes still further the purification and redemption of Dido, and may help to explain why Dido's lament (much like Virgil's Aeneid) has been taught to generations of music students.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)189-208
Number of pages20
JournalMusic and Letters
Volume84
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 2003

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Music

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