Kate Armond, modernism and the Theatre of the Baroque [Book Review]

Minden, Gabriela 2023. Kate Armond, modernism and the Theatre of the Baroque [Book Review]. The Journal of Wyndham Lewis Studies 11 , pp. 85-88.

Preview

PDF - Published Version Download (74kB) | Preview

Abstract

Kate Armond’s Modernism and the Theatre of the Baroque (2018)1 is less a study of influence than an exploration of the critical possibilities that arise in conjuring the specter of the baroque and using it as a lens through which to reassess various artistic phenomena of Anglo-American modernism. This choice of methodological framework is a wise one, as it allows Armond to shed the burden of proving causation and move on to the more sophisticated work of recovering what she aptly calls a “dialogue” between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries that is at once nuanced and compelling (7). As Armond acknowledges, this particular dialogue that modernism held with the past is not exactly unknown. Yet it represents an area in which scholars have continued to discover previously untrodden critical territory, evidenced not only by Armond’s study but also by recent works such as Jane Stevenson’s Baroque Between the Wars: Alternative Style in the Arts, 1918–1939 (2018) and Joseph Cermatori’s Baroque Modernity: An Aesthetics of Theatre (2021). Modernism and the Theatre of the Baroque constitutes a thought-provoking contribution to this facet of modernist studies. By reexamining a variety of early twentieth-century artistic phenomena in view of their affinity with theatrical and philosophical advances of the historical baroque, Armond illuminates what she describes as a “baroque aesthetic that runs counter to the dominant modernist values” promoted by central figures such as T. S. Eliot and James Joyce (7).

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Additional Information:	Vol. 11, pp. 85-88.
Publisher:	Tiger Prints
ISSN:	2052-5168
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	10 April 2024
Date of Acceptance:	1 November 2021
Last Modified:	03 Sep 2024 09:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/167858

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item