41 Among the apologists for the character of the misanthrope is Rousseau. Historians suggest that
this probably wasn’t the attitude taken by Molière’s audiences.
42 Frayn (2010: 137).
43 ‘Preface to Shakespeare’(1765), quoted in Gardner (2003: 239).
44 See Gardner (2003). Gardner also offers a critical analysis of some of Schiller’s later and more
philosophically complex attempts to reconcile tragedy and morality; these include the attempt to
replace tragic fate with the demands of moral reasoning and, elsewhere, the view that tragedy
presents its characters as capable of moral vocation, if not worthy of moral praise.
45 Rousseau (2004: 267).
46 On the‘moral’ending ofFanny Hill, see Haslanger (2011).
47 This is not meant to suggest that Shakespeare wastryingto show virtue rewarded and vice pun-
ished although that claim, as a defence of theatre, was certainly available at the time–it was used
by George Whetstone in 1578, in the preface to what would become the source play for
Shakespeare’sMeasure for Measure(see Carlson 1993: 79).
48 Lessing (1962: Section 1, p. 7).
49 Jacobson (1997) develops this thought using the reception of Ibsen’sGhosts, amongst others.
50 D’Alembert (2004: 244).
51 D’Alembert (2004: 244).
52 The word‘hypocrite’comes, of course, from the Greek for actor, and‘histrionic’derives from
the Etruscan word for the same; on philosophers, the best formulation probably belongs to Lord
Macaulay:‘They promised what was impracticable; they despised what was practicable. They filled
the world with long words and long beards; and they left it as wicked and as ignorant as they
found it.’
53 For a fine-grained discussion of the relationship between performing and acting, see Kirby (1995).
54 Poetics62a.
55 Poetics62a. One doubts whether the same could possibly be said of comedy.
56 Rousseau (2004: 307).
57 Wiles (1995: 87); Thomson (1995: 178). Generally, see Barish (1981).
58 Diderot (1883: 62–3).
59 Rousseau (2004: 306).
60 Rousseau (2004: 307).
61 Quoted in Thomson (1995: 202).
62 On the second point: Samuel Pepys, for example, notes how many men‘hover about actresses’
once they leave the stage–although it’s clear from his diaries that he wasn’t afraid of doing so
himself. See, e.g. Thomson (1995: 208).
63 Quoted in Carlson (1993: 60).
64 Kleist (1978); Lessing (1962: Sections 25, 56); Craig (1911).
65 The Republic395c.
66 The Republic395c.
67 This condemnation certainly occurs, even if it’s often nothing more than a thin pretext for envy,
frustration and social conservatism.
68 See Nehamas (1988). I write as somebody who was never allowed to play with toy guns as a
child, for precisely this reason.
69 See Barish (1981: 269–70).
70 Rousseau (2004: 309).
71 Rousseau (2004: 310). On the question of how (if at all) spectators are deceived by theatre, see
Chapter 3 and Chapter 6.
72 Goffman (1956) is the classic statement of this kind of view.
73 Aristotle’sPoetics55a. Horace writes:‘If you wish me to weep, you must feel sorrow your-
self.’(Ars Poetica, II, 102–3) Diderot is specifically responding toGarrick, ou les Acteurs Anglaisby
Sticotti.
74 Diderot (1883: 43–4).
75 Diderot (1883: 23).
76 Diderot (1883: 14).126 From the Stage to the World