SOURCE: "Introduction: Isadora Duncan," in Isadora Speaks by Isadora Duncan, edited by Franklin Rosemont, City Lights Books, 1981, pp. ix-xvii.

In the following essay, Rosemont praises Duncan's revolutionary approach to her art and her life.

Dancer, adventurer, revolutionist, ardent defender of the poetic spirit, Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) has been one of the most enduring influences on twentieth century culture. Ironically, the very magnitude of her achievements as an artist, as well as the sheer excitement and tragedy of her life, have tended to dim our awareness of the originality, depth and boldness of her thought. But Isadora always was a thinker as well as a doer, gifted with a lively poetic imagination, critical lucidity, a radical defiance of "things as they are," and the ability to express her ideas with verve and humor.

[Isadora Speaks] brings together, for the first time, dozens of her essays, speeches, interviews, letters-to-the-editor and...