Mime, Music and Drama on the Eighteenth-Century Stage: The Ballet d'Action

Description

The 'ballet d'action' was one of the most successful and controversial forms of theatre in the early modern period. A curious hybrid of dance, mime and music, its overall and overriding intention was to create drama. It was danced drama rather than dramatic dance, musical drama rather than dramatic music. Most modern critical studies of the ballet d'action treat it more narrowly as stage dance and very few view it as part of the history of mime. Little use has previously been made of the most revealing musical evidence. This innovative book does justice to the distinctive hybrid nature of the ballet d'action by taking a comparative approach, using contemporary literature and literary criticism, music, mime and dance from a wide range of English and European sources. Edward Nye presents a fascinating study of this important and influential part of eighteenth-century European theatre.

Edward Nye is Fellow of Lincoln College and Lecturer in French at the University of Oxford. His research centres on the eighteenth century and on artistic aesthetics in particular, and he is also interested in the history of ideas across centuries and national borders. He is the author of Literary and Linguistic Theories in Eighteenth-Century France (2000), the editor of a volume of literary reflections on dance, Sur Quel Pied Danser? Danse et Litterature (2005) and the editor of a scholarly anthology on the literature of cycling, A Bicyclette (2000).