Pablo Massa wrote:

>Karl Miller (or properly, The Harvard Dictionary of Music):
>
>>Affections, doctrine of: An aesthetic theory of the late baroque
>>period, formulated by A. Werckmeister (Harmonologia musica, 1702),
>>J.D. Heinichen (1711), J. Mattheson (1739), J.J. Quantz (1752), F.W.
>>Marpurg (Kritische Briefe, vol.  ii, 1763) and other 18th Century
>>writers...
>
>This deffinition is very curious, because is quite incomplete and partial
>(really surprising fact, coming from Harvard Dictionary).  All the works
>quoted above belongs to a later and decadent stage of this doctrine (at
>the second half of XVIII there were already more "dynamic" theories about
>emotions).  ...

While I do know of those earlier attempts, were they given the name of a
Doctrine of Affections? I believe while the notion existed before, it was
not so labeled. Perhaps I did not think to include it, but the Harvard
Dictionary does mention prior attempts to combine rhetoric and music.

As for believing what is written in dictionaries...in all seriousness
I recognize not only that errors are present (in one of my seminars we
were given several pages of the Harvard Dictionary to review, looking for
errors) but I also note the difference one can find in defintions...which
further adds to my notion of relativity in language.

Karl