Origins: Compleat Dancing Master

Subject: Origins: Compleat Dancing Master
From: irishenglish
Date: 22 May 08 - 10:14 AM

For the first time in awhile I played my cassette of Ashley Hutchings and John Kirkpatrick's Compleat Dancing Master. Can anyone tell me the origins of the spoken word segment called "Analysis Of Beauty." The cassette has no info on it whatsoever. I have seen the CD in print, but have yet to buy it. Thanks

Subject: RE: Origins: Compleat Dancing Master
From: DMcG
Date: 22 May 08 - 11:08 AM

I have the original LP, but I believe it says very little as well. If I remember rightly, it is from William Hogarth's 'The Analysis of Beauty', 1754.

Subject: RE: Origins: Compleat Dancing Master
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 22 May 08 - 11:15 AM

The entire text is online at Hogarth : Analysis of Beauty. Enjoy!

Subject: RE: Origins: Compleat Dancing Master
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 11:20 AM

From The Compleat Dancing Master - Ashley Hutchings & John Kirkpatrick

Michael Gough as William Hogarth (reading from Analysis of Beauty)


The lines, which a number of people together form, in country dancing, make a delightful play upon the eye, especially when the whole figure is to be seen at one view as at the playhouse from a gallery. The beauty of this kind of "mystic dancing," as the poets term it, depends upon moving in a composed variety of lines, chiefly serpentine, governed by the principals of intricacy. The dances of barbarians are often represented without these movements, being only composed of wild skipping, jumping, and turning around or running backward and forward with convulsive shrugs and distorted gestures. One of the most pleasing movements in country dancing which answers to all the principles of varying at once, is what they call the "hey."

William Hogarth -The Analysis of Beauty


- Analysis of Beauty, William Hogarth

Subject: RE: Origins: Compleat Dancing Master
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 11:20 AM

ooops, cross posting *LOL*

Subject: RE: Origins: Compleat Dancing Master
From: irishenglish
Date: 22 May 08 - 11:21 AM

Excellent, thank you all! That is my favorite of the spoken word passages on the album.

Subject: RE: Origins: Compleat Dancing Master
From: Def Shepard
Date: 22 May 08 - 11:27 AM

Let us read and let us dance - two amusements that will never do any harm to the world.

- Voltaire

Subject: RE: Origins: Compleat Dancing Master
From: nutty
Date: 22 May 08 - 01:33 PM

The Dancing Master can be found on line   HERE

Subject: RE: Origins: Compleat Dancing Master
From: pavane
Date: 23 May 08 - 02:52 AM

I always wondered why Shepherd's Hey (Morris) doesn't actually have a Hey