“The absence of ideology in a work does not mean an absence of ideas; on the contrary it fertilizes them.”

—  Eugéne Ionesco

"A Reply to Kenneth Tynan: The Playwright's Role" in The Observer (29 June 1958)
Context: Every work of art (unless it is a psuedo-intellectualist work, a work already comprised in some ideology that it merely illustrates, as with Brecht) is outside ideology, is not reducible to ideology. Ideology circumscribes without penetrating it. The absence of ideology in a work does not mean an absence of ideas; on the contrary it fertilizes them.

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Eugéne Ionesco photo
Eugéne Ionesco 59
Romanian playwright 1909–1994

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