Marcus’ Meditations have been the object of special attention for their literary form, structure, and style as well as for the function and destination that the author ascribed to them. Since they lack a precise plan and present some formal characteristics, the most important of which are the use of the second person, i.e. self-reference, conciseness, and repetitiveness, most scholars have concluded that the work was intended only for the emperor’s reading and use. This chapter provides, after an overview of the scholarly trends that have promoted such an exegesis of the form and function of the Meditations, a reconstruction of the relationship between formal elements and philosophical content follows and a terminological analysis of a sample of the text, concluding with a proposal to revise the widespread belief that the Meditations were conceived by the author only for his own education and spiritual improvement.

Examines surviving drafts of The Rite of Spring’s written scenario, created jointly by Roerich and Stravinsky, to explore how the ballet embodies on stage some of the ritual festivities that take place through the spring season of the Russian rural agricultural calendar. Prominent within this context is the singing of vesnyanki, ritual ‘calls’ for spring – short, repetitive invocations sung outdoors, from an elevated position, by children and unmarried girls. Khorovod dancing and games are also shown to be important activities central to springtime ritual observances. Charting how these activities make an appearance in the ballet, this chapter also explores the nationalist agenda of the Russian Silver Age, a period of roughly three decades, from the 1890s (the Russian fin de siècle) to the late 1910s, which witnessed a tremendous explosion of creativity in literature, philosophy and the arts. Folk song anthologies from the period, including those by Mily Balakirev, Nikolai Lvov and Ivan Prach, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Anton Juszkiewicz, emerge as historical artefacts of key significance to our understanding of the inspiration behind and source material of original works such as The Rite of Spring. In conclusion, this chapter considers a little-known connecting thread between the ballet and the opera Snow Maiden by Rimsky-Korsakov, which also features prominent ritual springtime observances, including a scene of sacrifice.

Identifies and explores the surviving sources of The Rite of Spring’s original visual aspect: costumes, designs for décor, posed photographs, articles and reviews in the press (especially the full-colour supplement Comœdia illustré), and artwork by the eminent Russian painter Nicholas Roerich. Also considers the role of the Hodson/Archer reconstruction (Joffrey Ballet, broadcast in 1989) in determining the look of the ballet and how that look captivated the scholarly imagination. Provides a structured account of Roerich’s career and theatrical experience, the main stylistic characteristics of his output and, in particular, his work alongside Ballets-Russes impresario Sergei Diaghilev and composer Igor Stravinsky.

Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) is the leading evidence-based form of modern psychotherapy. Albert Ellis and Aaron T. Beck, the two main pioneers of CBT, both described Stoicism as the main philosophical inspiration for their respective approaches. The idea of a Stoic psychotherapy isn’t new, and indeed the ancient Stoics referred to their philosophy as a type of therapy (therapeia) for the psyche. This chapter focuses on the ways in which concepts and practices described in the Meditations resemble those of modern psychotherapists, and indeed the direct influence of Marcus and other Stoics upon them. Marcus’ remarks about the Stoic therapy of anger provide an example of a specific application.

The relationship between Marcus’ views of natural philosophy and his ethical commitments has long been a vexed issue. This chapter aims first to clarify what Marcus’ own views on physics were, relying only on the contents of the Meditations, and only then to ask how these views relate to those of earlier Stoics and to consider whether Marcus’ position was a good one for him to hold. It becomes clear that Marcus regards nature, which is for him identical with god, as directly setting some important norms for human beings, most importantly because of the thorough integration of humans into the providential and teleological order of the cosmos. Marcus’ understanding of the natural world includes his conception of human nature as naturally social, which entails other important norms for human behaviour. Humans are, for Marcus, integrated ‘vertically’ with the cosmic order and ‘horizontally’ with other human beings; these integrations structure a great deal of Marcus’ ethical theory. But natural philosophy is far from being the only source of norms for Marcus; reflection on his relationships with other people and on the workings of his own mind also have impact and, as I suggest, may even lead him to views which conflict with the materialist determinism of most earlier Stoics.

Offers a succinct account of the genesis of the music composed by Igor Stravinsky for The Rite of Spring, introducing – and challenging – standard scholarly narratives about authorship, the nature of genius and the ‘work’ concept. Provides a timeline to help readers appreciate the development of the score as a collaborative project involving not only Stravinsky, but also visual artist and amateur archaeologist Nicholas Roerich, choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky, impresario Sergei Diaghilev and Ballets-Russes soloist Maria Piltz (who danced the role of the Chosen One at the premiere). Considers the nature and significance of Stravinsky’s published sketches, revealing their role in the creation of the ballet and the standard critical responses to it that have dominated throughout the past century.

Marcus Aurelius addresses himself as sociable by nature, as someone made to belong to a political community, and as a citizen of the cosmos. The good life for him consists in obeying the gods and cooperating with his fellow citizens in service of the common interest. His fellow citizens are all beings endowed with reason, and as a human he cares for all other people, whoever they may be. The Meditations demonstrate detailed knowledge and agreement with the conceptual foundations of Stoic cosmopolitanism, but specific approaches can be identified. Marcus underscores the organismic and egalitarian nature of the cosmic community and often gives a functional account of his status as a part of the cosmos, while at the same time also suggesting a hierarchical account of degrees of sociability. His rule as emperor he conceives as a personal challenge to live up to the model of his predecessor, Antoninus Pius, also sharing the latter’s conservativism and traditionalism. Marcus’ Stoicism is more apparent in his quest for sincere and truly loving sociability, a striving that finds its limits in the aversion and disappointment Marcus often seems to experience with regard to those around him.

Marcus Aurelius acknowledges his debt to the Stoic tradition of emotions and endorses both the analysis of emotions as value judgements, the ideal of apatheia, i.e. the eradication of ‘passions’, and the promotion of ‘good feelings’. By emotions, he means all kinds of emotional reactions to everything that reaches us from the outside, i.e. pleasure and pain as well as anger, love, fear, etc. Every impression being twofold (what the object is and of what value it is to us), Marcus develops a strategy to eradicate the second judgement. But there is a positive side to the reshaping of desire and aversion, a joy resulting from the gifts of nature and the fulfilment of our human relations. Such emotions are reserved for the Sage in ancient Stoicism, but they become more accessible to Marcus, who does not reject any emotion from human life but values the appropriate ones.

Summarizes the contents of the volume, focusing on cross-cutting themes: the reality of the premiere; the synthesis of the arts; avant-garde currents of the early twentieth century; Russian folklore and national identity; and the legacy and afterlife of Stravinsky’s score.

This chapter explores the 1965 Bolshoi production of The Rite of Spring, choreographed by husband-and-wife team Natalia Kasatkina and Vladimir Vasilyov and set to Stravinsky’s score. The principal aim is to explain how the production fits into the characteristic aesthetics of the Thaw, the period in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the government of the USSR reformed in the wake of Stalin’s death – and when a surprising Stravinsky revival took place at the Bolshoi Theatre. During this revival, The Rite of Spring appeared not as a strictly socialist realist work, though it did preserve some markers of socialist realist ballet. Rather, it was a production characterized by an avant-garde experimentalism itself in line with an emerging twentieth-century tradition of Rite re-imaginings.

Adopting a wide-angled view of the wealth of music-theoretical literature on Stravinsky’s score for The Rite of Spring that has emerged across the past century, this chapter surveys what has been a noisy corner of music scholarship. Much of the scholarly ink devoted to the work – specifically, to its status as a self-contained, purely musical structure – explores the business of pitch: principally, whether or not Stravinsky’s music can be heard as tonal or atonal, incoherent in its pitch organization or the result of some kind of secret musical code or unifying system, there to be deduced by the all-knowing and expert music analyst. Considering Stravinsky’s own statements on the matter, alongside a succession of highly nuanced music-analytical studies (Allen Forte, Richard Taruskin, Pieter van den Toorn), this chapter provides a detailed synopsis of how and why The Rite’s music has been approached by scholars, and what the resulting literature about the work’s internal genetics can reveal about trending academic perspectives over time.