Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The term “modern” is a controversial one. Its ambiguity may be traced to its etymology: deriving from the Latin modo, meaning “lately, just now,” the word has had a relative definition since its beginnings. Literary and cultural historians have nonetheless sought to define it in absolute terms, seeking variously to locate the origins of “the modern” in Europe in the post-medieval era, the Renaissance, or the years around 1800; “high modernism” in fiction, poetry, and the plastic arts is usually defined as the period from 1910 to 1930. Where European theater is concerned, however, there is general agreement that modernism begins with the work of Ibsen; the location of its endpoint depends on how (or whether) one defines postmodern theater – whether beginning with World War II or later. My treatment of modern European theater and the tragic will focus on the years from roughly 1880 to 1910, a period that can be said to represent modern theater at its apex. In the broadest terms – terms that will be elaborated and qualified in the course of this chapter – the “modernism” of tragic theater in this era lies in the increased heterogeneity of its form and in the heightened extent to which it explores the influence of gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic factors in determining human lives. I will therefore concentrate on four parameters through which modern European tragic theater may usefully ... log in or subscribe to read full text