1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910810761903321

Autore

McLean Albert F.

Titolo

American vaudeville as ritual / / Albert F. McLean, Jr

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Lexington, Kentucky : , : University Press of Kentucky, , 1965

©1965

ISBN

0-8131-8479-7

0-8131-5074-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (288 p.)

Disciplina

792.7

Soggetti

Vaudeville - United States

Popular culture - United States

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di bibliografia

Bibliographical references included in "Notes" (p. 223-238)

Nota di contenuto

Cover; Title; Copyright; Preface; Contents; One: The Symbolism of Vaudeville; Two: Evolution of a Ritual; Three: The New Folk and Their Heroes; Four: From Sin to Sociology; Five: The Mechanics of Fantasy; Six: The New Humor; Seven: A Modern Totemism and Sorcery; Eight: The Playlets; Nine: The Palaces; Ten: The Patterns of Ritual Meaning; Notes; A Note on the Sources; Index; A; B; C; D; E; F; G; H; I; J; K; L; M; N; O; P; R; S; T; U; V; W; Y

Sommario/riassunto

This study affords an entirely new view of the nature of modern popular entertainment. American vaudeville is here regarded as the carefully elaborated ritual serving the different and paradoxical myth of the new urban folk. It demonstrates that the compulsive myth-making faculty in man is not limited to primitive ethnic groups or to serious art, that vaudeville cannot be dismissed as meaningless and irrelevant simply because it fits neither the criteria of formal criticism or the familiar patterns of anthropological study. Using the methods for criticism developed by Susanne K. Langer and other