Description
Book SynopsisA groundbreaking study on the vital role of baroque theater in shaping modernist philosophy, literature, and performance. Finalist for the Outstanding Book Award by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, Honorable Mention for the Balakian Prize by the International Comparative Literature Association, Winner of the Helen Tartar Book Subvention Award by the American Comparative Literature Association, Finalist of the MSA First Book Prize by the Modernist Studies AssociationBaroque stylewith its emphasis on ostentation, adornment, and spectaclemight seem incompatible with the dominant forms of art since the Industrial Revolution, but between 1875 and 1935, European and American modernists connected to the theater became fascinated with it. In Baroque Modernity, Joseph Cermatori argues that the memory of seventeenth-century baroque stages helped produce new forms of theater, space, and experience around the turn of the twentieth century. In response, modern theater helped give
Table of ContentsIllustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
On "Baroque"
Introduction: Toward an Orphic Modernism
Chapter 1. Overcoming Ascetic Style: Nietzsche and the Transvaluation of the Baroque
Chapter 2. The Matter of Spectacle: Mallarmé and the Futures of Theatrical Ostentation
Chapter 3. Landscapes of Melancholy: Benjamin, Trauerspiel, and the Pathways of Tradition
Chapter 4. The Citability of Baroque Gesture: Unsettling Stein
Epilogue: Glancing Back, Reaching Forward
Note on Translations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
