This past Friday I had the opportunity to attend a performance of Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro, in the U street section of D.C. Besides being a play of considerable wit and physical comedy which took the edge off of a long week, it is also cited to have aided inspiring the French Revolution. Watching some of the subtle cues that spurred for independence of underlings and listening to equally caustic lines that spurned the hierarchy, I certainly grasped the revolutionary themes of the play. What was harder to understand is how a play could really move people to such dramatic (irony intended) action.
As I reflect, staring at my computer and browsing from news pieces to blogs to social networking, I have a minor revelation that has occurred to me before in various forms. Part of the reason that words no longer seem to carry as much import is that we are inundated with so many of them. Surveys (for what they’re worth) show that people barely read short blog posts through any more- merely skim. So while the information age seems to be progress, it also dulls our senses and our motivation (ref: Wall-E). While you may not agree with the French Revolution, you may at least join me in desiring that the sleek, yet powerful, weapon of words might again inspire man to action.
2 comments:
Very true, Caitlin. Sensory overload is a huge problem today, for many if not most of us. To give an example: After I read your post and decided to comment on it, the thought occurred to me: To think that only 100 years ago, people in Paris could listen to the Rite of Spring, analyze it, and then start a riot. They hated the music so much that they rioted. I decided I should post a link from the Wikipedia article. I went to Wikipedia, read three or four articles on the city of Bristol, and nearly forgot why I went there in the first place. Then, I saw the other tab I had open, and I remembered.
Oh, Here's the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rite_of_Spring
Paris was not the only city to riot over operas. In 1830 the Belgian Revolution began after an evening of Daniel Auber's La Muette de Portici (The Dumb Girl of Portici). The end result was that they got their own country.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution#Night_at_the_opera
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