Modernism and Anti-theatricality: An Afterword

Abstract

Two views of anti-theatricalism emerge from Jonas Barish's Antitheatrical Prejudice (1981). According to the predominant one, anti-theatricalism is a prejudice that is inextricably woven into the very fabric of Western thought, from its Greek origins to the nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers of modernity. Plato and Friedrich Nietzsche, St. Augustine and Theodor Adorno, Pagan Rome and the Puritans — the most disparate philosophers apparently share one troubling flaw: their hatred of the theatre. When faced with such stubborn opposition, such a repetitive history of a prejudice seemingly untouched by the most revolutionary social, philosophical, and artistic upheavals, it is not surprising that Theatre Studies would go into a defensive mode, that exposing this prejudice would be seen as a first and necessary step to bring about its demise.

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