The Anti-Theatrical Prejudice: New Edition

(Paperback)

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The original edition was published in 1981.

This widely praised and remarkable study of the antipathy aroused by theatre over the centuries has been long out of print and rare to find. Major philosophers such as Plato, St. Augustine, Rousseau, and Nietzsche have been hostile toward theatre. The controversy has raged for more than two millennia and continues today, in contemporary scholarship addressing this phenomenon and in the writings of artists and visual arts who declared themselves against theatres reliance on representation and the artifice of the actor. Barishs erudite volume is a foundational text in the philosophy of theatre, ranging from the classics to the post-war theatre.

The new edition includes a Foreword by Joseph Roach, the distinguished theatre historian and stage director, and professor emeritus, Dept. of English, Yale University. He is the author ofThe Players Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting and Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance.

Reviews

Reviews from the first edition:

In undertaking to chronicle and discuss the range of anti-theatrical prejudice sincefirst there was a theatre to provoke such feeling Jonas Barish has shouldered a burden that might have broken many a good man; he has performed it not only with scholarly fullness but with a concision and wit that make delightful reading.University of Toronto Quarterly

Fixes on a fascinating intellectual puzzle: the ambivalence which mankind has felt toward the theaterThe greatest virtue of Jonas Barishs book is that he displays through case studies the historical sweep and depth of the ambivalenceThe intensity of the various attacks is astonishing. Barishs case studies the historical sweep and depth of the ambivalenceThe intensity of the various attacks is astonishing. Barishs case studies are grippingIts historical richness furthers discussion in a fascinating but neglected area the philosophy of theater.Journal of Aesthetics and Art

Explains, among other valuable functions, why theater has traditionally been a threatening source of disquiet to those concerned with social and political behavior. With impeccable scholarship and learning, Professor Barish traces the ancient distrust of plays and players from its earliest appearance in Platountil it enters the theater itself, in the purifying fires of Artuad, Grotowski, and HandkeA most valuable book providing important insights into the way we think about the stage.New Republic

The usefulness of the professors book lies in his classification of objections to the theater. By way of these objections, he shows clearly the ways in which morality caries according to the culture from which it comes and makes this truism seem new by staging it, so to speak, instead of confining it to the prose.New York Review of Books

Author Bio

Jonas Barish(1922-1998) was a distinguished theatre historian and authority on Ben Jonson and Shakespeare. He taught at the University of California. A leading scholar of his generation, Barish was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.