First comparative study to address the rediscovery of baroque
aesthetic in modernism
Did you know that seventeenth-century philosophy influenced dance theory
and evolutionary science during the modernist period? Or that in
England, Italy and Germany the term 'baroque' was used almost
exclusively as an insult until the 1900s? Modernism and the Theatre of
the Baroque fashions an independent aesthetic for modernist writers and
texts that challenges many high modernist qualities promoted by James
Joyce and T. S. Eliot. Providing a fresh interpretation of the works of
Djuna Barnes, Wyndham Lewis, Edward Gordon Craig and Isadora Duncan, the
book broadens our understanding of modernist priorities and demonstrates
how readily these ideas translate across genres. It shows that
modernists are not passive recipients of baroque stereotypes but are
instead painstaking in their research and innovative in their reworking
of original sources. This is an introduction to key ideas, characters
and techniques that will allow the baroque to be used as a conceptual
and historical framework for analysing modernist achievements, thereby
opening up new opportunities for further research.
Key features
- Fashions an independent aesthetic for modernist writers and texts that
challenges many high modernist qualities promoted by James Joyce
and T. S. Eliot
- Provides new connections between philosophy/critical theory and
modernist culture, links that are relevant to both popular and
academic interest
- Introduces key ideas, characters and techniques that allow the baroque
to be used as both a conceptual and historical framework for analysing
modernist achievements, thereby opening up new opportunities for
research, and demonstrating how readily these ideas translate across
genre
