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- Title
On the Symbolism of Juggling: The Moral and Aesthetic Implications of the Mastery of Falling Objects.
- Authors
Chandler, Arthur
- Abstract
This article examines the moral and aesthetic implications of juggling. According to the Random House Dictionary, to juggle is to keep several objects in motion in the air simultaneously by tossing and catching, and to manipulate in order to deceive, as by trickery. The roots of this ambivalence reach down hundreds of years. The Greek words for juggler referred to both workers of wonders and perpetrators of tricks and falsehoods. The terms also applied to wizards and conjurers, and were allied to another word that referred to magicians who came from India and China. The terms carried connotations of both admiration and contempt. For centuries, all kinds of juggling in China were admired by the people, who were willing to applaud and pay for feats of manual dexterity. Fu Qifeng, the leading Chinese scholar of acrobatics in China, speculates that juggling began during the Stone Age as a sporting variation of boomerang-throwing. The connection makes sense, since an activity which sharpened the skills necessary for successful hunting and fighting would have obvious survival value. Juggling was born at that moment when the warrior or hunter found that the tossing and catching of weapons was a pleasurable act itself, even in the absence of the enemy or prey.
- Subjects
JUGGLING; ETHICS; AESTHETICS; AMUSEMENTS; TRICKS
- Publication
Journal of Popular Culture, 1991, Vol 25, Issue 3, p105
- ISSN
1540-5931
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.0022-3840.1991.105744.x