That would not correspond with Sontag's notes on the subject: on the contrary, she would say that one of the first conditions of camp is high seriousness done badly (or words to that effect).

But is this about intention or result? Are we thinking about what Shostakovich 'meant to say', so to speak, or what simply is evoked by the music? If the latter, fine; I can't hear it in the same way as, say, Beckett's tragic evocation of the Merry Widow waltz in Happy Days, but that has something to do with the bittersweet quality of the Lehár piece in the first place. A very different effect to what may have been Shostakovich's attempts to create pathos (which I can sort of hear, but also hear a discrepancy between what the music seems to be trying to be, and what it actually becomes - note that this is derived from how it sounds, what he was thinking at the time of writing I have no idea); Beckett's work, to me, rarely evokes, or seems to try to evoke, such a heavy-handed thing as pathos.

Yes, George, for whatever reason - paranoia, common sense, simply the will to live? - Shostakovich was very good at covering his tracks, so nobody will ever really be able to identify his intentions with total accuracy (although heaven knows it's spawned a large enough cottage industry). The William Tell quotation is simply a very recognisable one so will obviously draw attention to itself, but its prominence also underlines the fact that such references are a regular weapon in his armoury; why does I'll be loving you...(Always) turn up in the last movement of 4, or a theme from 4ii reappear right at the beginning of 5i? Why the reference to Carmen in that same movement?

Answers to the above will forever be conjectural, but surely the fact that the questions are there to be posed in the first place validates discussion?

As far as the Tristan quote goes, I have always thought that this was such a strange place to mock such a huge moment in music history - in a book of such intimate pieces. Almost an extra snub in itself maybe, bearing in mind the childlike associations of the setting.
I imagine by placing it in the context of the Cakewalk, Debussy was thumbing his nose even more sarcastically at the assumed self-importance of the Tristan quote, but although I think Cakewalk is a fantastic piece, I don't really feel Debussy strikes a telling blow by placing it here. Maybe it's meant to be partially affectionate, but I've never thought so. At least Bartok had the civility to mimic Shostakovich in a 'grown up' orchestral piece (but from reading these posts I find that there is a lot of uncertainty as to what Bartok's intention was).

 I think that the mock romantic climax that follows the Tristan quote though is brilliantly camp. In fact the whole section could slide in easily to a Tom and Jerry cartoon as Tom preens himself in Byronic manner, unaware of Jerry sticking 'I'm an idiot' stickers on his back.

Maybe this brings it all back to the question of where camp ends and satire begins? I hear the Debussy citation as mildly mocking but still affectionate (though perhaps it's a little too easy to say that with prior knowledge of Debussy's own conflicting feelings towards Wagner), in a not dissimilar manner to the mocking quality of 'Hommage à S. Pickwick Esq. P.P.M.P.C.', perhaps? If one takes Sontag's definitions, camp is affectionate rather than malicious and cynical (see her note 55). Though other earlier and later definitions (including that of Cocteau) seem to imply that camp has a rather harsher and more incisive edge to it. Maybe this all comes down to possibly fruitless questions of semantics which inevitably arise a term is used that has a variety of possible meanings, but which are too often used interchangeably?

Indeed so.

And let's not forget the Third Symphony by Charles Ives.

That's a chicken-and-egg argument. I don't see how we can talk about 'camp' unless we have some sort of workable definition of it; Sontag provides one, other writers provide related though different ones. Or we can attempt to formulate an alternative definition (which was one reason for the initial questions). But how is an investigation of such a subject skewered because some postulated definitions are offered, when the whole question of what constitutes musical 'camp' is meaningless without some notion of what it means. Possibly the theorists do only take about 'the camp manifestations that suit their theorisations', but that can equally be said about anyone who uses the term in their own particular way. Sontag's essay was indeed highly influential, and not just in rarefied intellectual circles - it led to glossy newspaper profiles of her as 'Miss Camp' (as well as being 'the dark lady of American letters') and was widely discussed throughout the media. If she or others only picked up certain manifestations of 'camp', how do you define the term, then, and why should that definition have more weight?


Certainly, but that's equally true of Tony Hancock as well - would we call him 'camp'? And seems a recurrent factor for comedians in general giving rise to a certain mythology of the tortured soul who creates a comic, sometimes flamboyant persona in order to shelter themselves. With Williams, the contrast between the essentially affectionate persona he presented in public, and the much more acidic, bitter person we know through his diaries and so on interests me: because they don't necessarily seem polar opposites, but rather the private person seems as much of a defence mechanism as the public one; only the former makes no attempt to be affectionate.

OK, still that makes 'Ooh, matron' into the epitome of camp, which may itself be subject to question - are smut, innuendo, frivolousness necessarily defining attributes? If we use 'camp' purely in an informal way, so as to refer to certain things we've just come to know are apparently 'camp', then it's possible that the concept might be too loose to be useable; more importantly, though, if start from an empirical example such as that as the starting point for investigation, one which may be a very occasional, particular and not-very-representative example of something called 'camp' then again we might fail to see the wood for the trees. Informally, 'camp' is a term that is used in lots of quite different ways, and consequently different attributes are associated with it (and its often conflated with kitsch); without some clarification in this respect (for which I would suggest an examination of the various people who have attempted to theorise it more rigorously is a reasonable starting-point) won't we inevitably be talking at cross-purposes? Though you'll note that in my first post in the thread I did ask what the term in general meant to people, for which alas hardly anyone responded.

It's like with the word 'deconstruction', which is bandied about so often and so unthinkingly. It does have a more specific meaning as developed by Derrida (who did say that he was never that happy with the term, though) and I think there's much to be gained from maintaining a more precise definition (which doesn't have to be identical with Derrida's) rather than simply using so broadly that it loses much in the way of incisive meaning.


If it's necessary but not sufficient, then it isn't in itself sufficient to be able to call Williams 'camp' either. If he is camp and Hancock isn't, then the comic/damaged person facet can't be a defining attribute, since both share it.


Well, maybe it depends on which of the different public personae. Rather less affectionate in 'Julian and Sandy', more so in the Carry-On films (or even on Just a Minute), don't you think?