Dance Writings and Poetry

By Edwin Denby

Book Overview

Edwin Denby, who died in 1983, was the most important and influential American dance critic of this century. His reviews and essays, which he wrote for almost thirty years, were possessed of a voice,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0394749847
• ISBN13: 9780394749846
• Release Date: December 1986
• Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
• Length: 608 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

A necessary book: among the best critics, beautiful poems.

Don't be buffaloed by Times reviewer: Denby's poems are American treasures, not "quaint" in any way; they are densely wrought, large scale beyond their compact sonnet formats, piquant. & yes, as critic, Denby is among the topmost immortals -- meaning he ranks with Diderot, Shaw, Baudelaire. Poems & dance writings both put forth companionable, no-nonsense, strict, generous urbane attitude: "Dance criticism has two different aspects: one is being made drunk for a second by seeing something happen; the other is expressing lucidly what you saw when you were drunk." And: "Actual events are obscure/ Though the observers appear clear."