Beauty, kitsch and criticism. Why a play should not be performed

Abstract

The romantic ideal of beauty poses many threats due to its closeness to kitsch. Hermann Broch brooded over this thesis and concluded that kitsch, romantic in origin, embodied both the aesthetic and the moral antivalue. With this view in mind, we aim to show that the criticism focusing on a symbolic or content-oriented interpretation of works of art belongs to that system of kitsch. The present article reflects on some implications of the ideas that Sontag and Barthes, among other critics, put forth some decades ago. We conclude that literary and art criticism must overcome the romantic upheaval and its ideal of beauty in order to be truly authentic.