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Always focused on the dialogue between pleasure and ideology, with an echo in the present reality, melodrama played the part of an open aesthetical form, encouraging the public to acknowledge and self-perceive its identity with a sort of enthusiasm which foregoes the mass culture phenomenon. Contrary to the views expressed by Lovinescu and other theorists which assert the eternity of melodramatic structures (Eric Bentley, among others), Peter Brooks harbours the melodramatic category to the strict boundaries of modern culture - and, particularly, to the purist aesthetics of modernity - by neglecting its socio-cultural side. Aesthetically speaking, the outstanding originality of melodrama does not lie in the psychological insight on fictional characters which are now moulded according to an "existential" way of being. It is the intrigue the element which keeps a tensioned atmosphere of suspense and, more precisely, the explicit scenic disposition which astonishes the public by displaying pompous paraphernalia and theatrical effects and draws the spectator to recognize the eternal pattern of good-evil fight. After its stage settings and awesome effects, melodrama actually comes nearer to the experimental genres. It releases the strong feeling that, bearing the ability to reshape itself on various contexts and conditions, melodrama resembles very much to the model of avant-garde literature. Lovinescu's point in pinning up the actuality of melodrama is nevertheless meritorious as, engrained by melodramatic techniques, his novels break open the ways to other perspectives on modernism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]