“ Not only criminals, but women, slaves, and inferiors generally, ought not to be imitated by superior men. ”
Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (1945). copy citation
| Author | Bertrand Russell |
|---|---|
| Source | A History of Western Philosophy |
| Topic | women criminal |
| Date | 1945 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | http://www.ntslibrary.com/PDF%20Books/History%20of%20Western%20Philosoph... |
Context
“The good man, he says, ought to be unwilling to imitate a bad man; now most plays contain villains; therefore the dramatist, and the actor who plays the villain’s part, have to imitate people guilty of various crimes. Not only criminals, but women, slaves, and inferiors generally, ought not to be imitated by superior men. (In Greece, as in Elizabethan England, women’s parts were acted by men.) Plays, therefore, if permissible at all, must contain no characters except faultless male heroes of good birth. The impossibility of this is so evident that Plato decides to banish all dramatists from his city:”
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