in the last half-century ludwig wittgenstein's relevance beyond analytic philosophy, to continental philosophy, to cultural studies, and to the arts has been widely acknowledged.

wittgenstein's tractatus logico-philosophicus was published in 1922 - the annus mirabilis of modernism - alongside joyce's ulysses, eliot's the waste land, mansfield's the garden party and woolf's jacob's room. bertolt brecht's first play to be produced, drums in the night, was first staged in 1922, as was jean cocteau's antigone, with settings by pablo picasso and music by arthur honegger. in different ways, all these modernist landmarks dealt with the crisis of representation and the demise of eternal metaphysical and ethical truths. wittgenstein's tractatus can be read as defining, expressing and reacting to this crisis. in his later philosophy, wittgenstein adopted a novel philosophical attitude, sensitive to the ordinary uses of language as well as to the unnoticed dogmas they may betray. if the gist of modernism is self-reflection and attention to the way form expresses content, then wittgenstein's later ideas - in their fragmented form as well as their "ear-opening" contents - deliver it most precisely.

understanding wittgenstein, understanding modernism shows wittgenstein's work, both early and late, to be closely linked to the modernist geist that prevailed during his lifetime. yet it would be wrong to argue that wittgenstein was a modernist tout court. for wittgenstein, as well as for modernist art, understanding is not gained by such straightforward statements. it needs time, hesitation, a variety of articulations, the refusal of tempting solutions, and perhaps even a sense of defeat. it is such a vision of the linkage between wittgenstein and modernism that guides the present volume.

in the nineteenth century, the french lyric poets imposed their diction on the theatrical genre and thus illuminated the essence of both poetry and theatre. ten plays by victor hugo, the standard-bearer of the french romantic theatre, and alfred de musset, the romantic playwright most frequently performed in france today, are analyzed by charles affron to answer the question, "can the dialetic form of the theatre accommodate the solitary elan of the lyric poet?"

as a functional point of departure, he considers those characteristics of lyric poetry--time, voice, and metaphor--which bring us closest to the singular attitudes of hugo and musset. then, examining the texts of hernani, les burgraves, torquemada, fantasio, and lorenzaccio as well as several lesser known plays, mr. affron discusses such topics as poetic time, the scope of analogy, theatrical and poetic rhetoric, the guises of the poet-hero, and the manner of sounding the poet's voice upon the stage.

originally published in 1971.

the princeton legacy library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of princeton university press. these editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. the goal of the princeton legacy library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by princeton university press since its founding in 1905.