The Ape Clothed in Gold.

The
unmusical man and his broken
music
In this paper I want to look at the early modern figure of unmusical man
and at instances of broken inner music as a way of addressing both the
figurative usage of music as an encompassing metaphor of harmony and
proportion and the account of its real effects in a persons moral and intellectual
life, in several types of text: writings in praise of music (The Praise of Musicke:
1586; John Cases Apologia Musices: 1588; Gioseffo Zarlinos Istitutioni
Harmoniche: 1558), general manuals on music (Thomas Morleys A Plaine and
Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke: 1597; Charles Butlers The Principles of
Musik: 1634; John Playfords Introduction to the Skill of Musick: 1655; Thomas
Ravenscrofts Treatise of Practicall Musicke: 1605 and A Briefe Discourse: 1614),
some of Shakespeares plays (mainly The Tempest, approx. 1610-11; Richard II,
approx. 1595; The Merchant of Venice, 1596-1598) and Peachams tratise on
gentlemanly education (The Compleat Gentleman: 1622). Since the uncultivated
nature of the man that hath no music in himself (Shakespeare, MV, 5.1.82) is
not only a matter of uncouth manners or lack of proper skills, more philosophical
questions related to moral decorum, the cultivation of ones being and the proper
balance between Art and Nature in ones life will be addressed. To this end, I will
be using texts in which human mentation is described by analogy with musics
inner mechanisms (cf. Kassler, 1995) alongside writings that comment on the
(right) use of music in altering ones inner tuning: Thomas Wright, The Passions
of the Minde in Generall: 1604; Descartess Musicae Compendium: 1653 and
the Passions of the Soul: 1649; Burtons Anatomy of Melancholy: 1621; Robert
Fludds De musica mundana: 1618 and Utriusque Cosmi , 1617-1624.