ABSTRACT
In Chapter 9, Álvaro Torrente and José María Domínguez report their extensive, very recent original research on the language of emotions in the corpus of the librettos by Pietro Metastasio. This chapter takes as a point of departure the observation that, despite Descartes’s concerns for clarity, his efforts in Les Passions de l’âme were shaped by the cultural contingencies of words and language. This becomes evident from two perspectives for the authors: first, the terminology for human passions is particularly subjective; second, the translation of the various passions’ names to other European languages adds further complexity, as evidenced by both contemporary and modern translations. Thus, this chapter delves into the terms used to convey Cartesian ideas of passions, considering several translations of Descartes’s treatise, dating from 1650 through the present, thereby devising a cognate theory for analytical purposes in the realm of musical dramaturgy. In this manner and beginning with selected librettos by Metastasio and his use of such terminology, it aims at explaining in twenty-first-century vocabulary crucial concepts embedded in eighteenth-century operatic dramaturgy.
