Partisans of Dance: The Role of Apologia, and Portrayals of Opponents, in Seventeenth-Century Texts

This article examines how hatred of dance is represented implicitly in texts advocating the practice in the seventeenth century. First, quantitative analysis highlights the remarkably limited appearance of polemics and explicit defence of dance in these texts: most authors ignore the controversy to concentrate their efforts on developing the art form. Second, a study of the critical portraits of opponents of dance in the most fervently defensive texts finds recurring themes that reveal a common desire to present hatred for dance as marginal and incidental.