Termékeny rosszhiszeműség
Creative malice

Summary/Abstract: The treatise-sized open letter written by Rousseau to D’Alembert in 1758 is, as a matter of fact, an enormous pamphlet against the theatre. Reasearchers and interpreters of Rousseau's oeuvre always deal with it in connection with Rousseau’s social, moral and political philosophy, as if it would be so irrelevant with a view to aesthetics that it would be absurd to deal with it in that context. The study attempts to place the letter in the aesthetic tradition and environment, and concludes that Rousseau’s arguments against the theatre aren’t, on the one hand, absurd but historically motivated and creative, and, on the other hand, they make it clear that tradition of moral legitimation of theatre cannot be continued.

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