In March 1994 I made this proposal for a PhD to be undertaken at the Warburg Institute, London. The proposal was declined, and I was unable to find funding for it elsewhere. Instead I accepted the Warburg's suggestion that I take their MA in Combined Historical Studies. Orpheus and everything to do with the Orphic tradition still fascinate and inspire me, and I am uploading this as a monument to the patron of inspired musicians and mystics in the Western tradition.
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Considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to the figure of Orpheus; but the approach has been almost exclusively a literary one. Charles Segal's recent work was literary-theoretical; equally literary was 'Orpheus; the Metamorphosis of a Myth', with the exception of the excellent essay by John Warden (the collection's editor), which concludes that Marsilio Ficino 'brought him (Orpheus) back to life: the musician, magician, and hierophant that he was in the beginning'.
My aim is to show the influence of this synthetic ideal in Renaissance thought. Primarily, this concerns those philosophers who, like Ficino, adopted a Neoplatonism that was Christian to varying degrees. Methodologically, I shall distinguish the loosely 'Orphic' aspiration to the unity of philosophy, science and music from what counts as Orphic by more strictly historical criteria, namely a connection to the Orphic hymns and the myths. Ficino has received some study in this context, but it remains to apply the approach to such figures as Pico, Lefevre, Ralph Cudworth or Francesco Giorgi who wrote 'de harmonia mundi'. In science, Kepler as author of 'harmonice mundi' will be of particulat importance, in relation to contrasting scientific thinkers like Fludd or Cornelius Agrippa. Lastly, Orpheus has an obvious importance to the history of music, yet this study seems barely to have been attempted, in part because of the highly specialised interests of music historians.
It should also be noted that the attitudes of these 'Orphic' thinkers are more accessible now than at any time since the Renaissance: the advances of science have restored the importance of the interconnectedness of philosophy, science and music, forgotten by the philosophico-scientific tradition that followed Bacon and Descartes, and figures such as Iris Murdoch and Roger Penrose can be called Platonists, and members of a tradition that Proclus believed was derived from Orpheus.
For such a project, which is at once interdisciplinary and focused on the Renaissance, the Warburg Institute is ideal: not only does it possess a famous and comprehensive library; it is particularly dedicated to the survival of the Classical Tradition. And most importantly, D.P.Walker has left a body of work that may serve as a foundation for my own studies.
James North 29/3/1994