Mime, Music and Drama on the Eighteenth-Century Stage

Abstract

Edward Nye is a dance historian who specializes in the eighteenth century and who is the author of many articles on the genre of ballet d'action, which became known in Europe during the second half of the century. His groundbreaking book, Mime, Music and Drama on the Eighteenth-Century Stage, examines ballet d'action both in its own context and as a broader aesthetic phenomenon. It is an enriching milestone in a body of work that Nye has been developing for a decade.1 The book, presented in two parts, first contains an analysis of the genre within what the author argues to be its proper intellectual and historical context, and goes on to study its critical relationship to theatrical technique, or—to use a term from its era—the poetics of ballet d'action.