Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/635

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
*
553
*

PUPIN. 553 PUPPET. was able to prevent the attenuation of the elec- trical waves so that a far greater amount of the original current could be received at the terminal of the telephone conductor or cable. This inven- tion greatly extended the limits of long-distance telephony and made possible the use of the tele- phone with cables of considerable length. The rights were acquired by the Bell Telephone Com- pany, in 1001, a year after the research had been described before the American Institute of Elec- trical Engineers, and was also bought by German telephone interests and given an e.tensive and successful trial. PUPIP'ARA (Xeo-Lat., from Lat. pupa, doll, puppet, pupa + parere. to bring forth). A so- cailed series of Hies including those forms in which the female gives birth to full-grown lar';E which immediately transform to pupje. The term is really erroneous and the group is not a nat- ural one, the points of resemblance, as Miiggen- berg suggests, being probably the results of con- vergence. The series comprises four families, the HippoboscidiE or bird-ticks (see Tick: Forest- Fly), the Braulidse or bee-lice, the Streblids, and the Xycteribiidfe or bat-ticks. (See Tick.) The flies of this group have very abnormal habits and live by sucking the blood of mammals, birds, and bees : in some cases they are wingless para- sites. The family Braulidue consists only of single species, Brauhi cwcu. a minute insect which lives on bees. The adult is said to deposit a pupa in the cell of a bee by the side of a young bee larva. The queen bee is said to be esjiecially atTected by the adult Braulas. The series Pu- pipara corresponds with the group Eproboscidae, which is ranked as a suborder of the Dipters. PtJPPER, pup'per, .JoH.NX. The correct name of the German Augustinian monk called Johannes von Goch (q.v. ). PUPPET (OF. poupcfte, doll, from Lat. pupa, doll, pupjiet). A small jointed figure, com- monly of wood or cardboard, representing a char- acter on the stage of a puppet theatre, and moved with strings, or iron rods, or otherwise by a con- cealed agent. For the dialogue in this mimic drama, the invisible operator varies his voice as he takes the different roles. The more elaborately installed puppets are now commonly called mar- ionettes, from the French term, ninrionnetfrs, a diminutive, perhaps through the form marioleftes, of ilarie, and denoting originally little figures of the Virgin Mary. Of the simpler form of pup- pets, the familiar representatives are Punch and Judy. See PrxcH. The origin of this form of entertainment is lost in antiquity. It was known to both Greeks and Romans. Figtires with movable limbs have been found even in the tombs of ancient Egypt and of Etruria. though many of these were probabl^v only dolls for children and afford little evidence of a puppet drama. Of this perhaps the earliest development was in India. It is significant that the Sanskrit equivalent for stage-manager, sil- tradhurn, literally means thread-holder. In China puppet-shows are likewise known, and also an adaptation of them in which the movable figures cast their shadows upon a curtain, whence the name, ombre.i chiiwise.i. See Sn.iDOW-PLAY. Puppet-shows have received perhaps their high- est development among the .Javanese, who may have derived the idea from India. The Javanese puppets are ordinarily about two feet high, and of elaborate, tisually grotesque formation. They are used for shadow-jjlajs as well as for direct representation, and the dramas in which they are employed are of great elaboration — often of re- ligious and ceremonial significance. In Java, also, women sometimes dress as puppets and act in shadow-plays, imitating the stiff posturing of their models. Although choruses may be given them, the dialogue remains with a separate speaker. This affords a living analogy to a simi- lar stage in the development of Oriental drama, tradition of which is preserved in China. Among the Turks, too, and in ilohammedan countries generally, the puppet-show is a popular enter- tainment, in which, it is asserted, the marionette actors exhibit a style of immorality even more atrocious than does our own Punch. Puppet- shows were tised in the Middle Ages by the Chris- tian Church, among other dramatic means, such as miracle-plays. In England these religion* pup- pet-plays were called motions. The earliest exhi- bitions of this kind consisted of representations of stories taken from the Old and New Testa- ments, or from the lives and legends of saints. Several men gained reputation in the eighteenth centuiy as puppet exhil)itors, among them Powell, Pinkethman, Yates, and Flockton. In Germany puppets are said to have been known as early as the twelfth century. Lessing and Goethe in their day thought the subject not unworthy of their serious artistic attention. A favorite piece in the German puppet theatres early in the nineteenth century was Doktor Johannep, Faust, which was published at Frankfurt in 1846. In France the introduction of regular marionettes is commonly credited to Pierre Brioche, who had a puppet- show on the Pont Xeuf at Paris, in the reign of Louis XIV., but there is reason to believe that they were really known there much earlier. They have been especially popular at Lyons, where the character of Guif/nol was invented, but naturally they are a familiar adjunct to fairs and other periodic festivities generally. Of the marionette drama of Western Europe the real home, however, seems to be among the Italians. Puppet theatres have been known for centuries at Naples, Milan, and elsewhere, and in America the best-maintained marionette shows are among Italian immigrants. The dialogue in these mimic theatres is in its detail largely ex- temporized. The favorite themes are legends of the Court of Charlemagne. There is, moreover, a considerable literature for the marionette stage. Thus, besides what has already been mentioned, may be cited such German collections as Engel, Deutsche Pup jKukontfidicn (Oldenburg. lS74-n-2), Kollmann. Deutsche I'uppenspiele (J^eipzig. 1891), and Mahlmann. Marionettentheater (Leipzig, ISOG), and also some of the best-known pieces of ilaeterlinck, to say nothing of his imitators. A distinction might, however, properly be drawn be- tweeen plays actually for marionette performance and the so-called "plays for marionettes,' which merely form a modern literary type subtly de- fined through the associations of the name. On the puppet theatre there are observations in The Spectator and The Tatler, and Addison wrote a Latin poem entitled ilachince Gesficulantes (An- glice, .I Puppet-iihoir). Consult, on the history of the subject: Magnin. Histoire des marionncttes (2d ed.. Paris. 1862) : Pischel, Die Beimat des Puppoispiels (Halle, 1900) ; :Maindron, Marion- nettes et guignols (Paris, 1900).