After reading these excerpts from such wonderful works of literature and looking at the function of dance within them, I find myself curious about the authors' attitudes towards dancing. It seems that despite the tone, be it Twain's mockery or Austen's reverence, all the authors view dance as having purely instrumental value. That is, as having purpose that arises from its ability to enable or bring about something of a higher concern or value. In general, in these works dance serves as the vehicle for pure entertainment, for social interaction or for psychological shift. It seems to possess no value in and of itself.
My current thought is that perhaps this view of dance as being valuable for its own sake only arose when dance took on a form of self-expression, or when the aesthetic value no longer necessarily implied anything about socioeconomic status or upbringing. Could anyone find anything within the literature that suggests that the author could see dance for itself rather than for its usefulness in other contexts? Or any outside sources that we did not touch on?
Aly
I believe since the purpose of writing about dance wasn't for the dance itself, the authors had no real reason to put much value in it. They were not really interested in the dance but in how dance fits in their literature & the overarching themes and what they wished to convey.
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