First published in 1946, The Playwright as Thinker is a classic work of drama criticism that helped create the intellectual environment in which serious American theater would thrive in the second half of the twentieth century. At the time of publishing, most drama critics believed dramatic art deserved no intellectual status; Eric Bentley set out to prove them wrong. Focusing on the canonic playwrights Strindberg, Ibsen, Pirandello, Sartre, and Brecht, Bentley viewed the playwright as thinker, and his survey of over 150 years of dramatic art provided, in essence, an intellectual history of Europe. This edition not only contains the original, long-suppressed foreword, in which Bentley lambastes the climate of Broadway at the time, but also the author's 1987 afterword.
- 416 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
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Subtopic
Literary Criticism in DramaIndex
LiteratureTable of contents
- CONTENTS
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- FOREWORD
- 1. THE TWO TRADITIONS OF MODERN DRAMA
- 2. TRAGEDY IN MODERN DRESS
- 3. TRAGEDY IN FANCY DRESS
- 4. WAGNER AND IBSEN: A CONTRAST
- 5. BERNARD SHAW
- 6. VARIETIES OF COMIC EXPERIENCE
- 7. AUGUST STRINDBERG
- 8. FROM STRINDBERG TO JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
- 9. FROM STRINDBERG TO BERTOLT BRECHT
- 10. BROADWAY-AND THE ALTERNATIVE
- NOTES
- AFTERWORD (1987)
- INDEX
- WORKS BY ERIC BENTLEY
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Yes, you can access The Playwright as Thinker by Eric Bentley in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Literature & Literary Criticism in Drama. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.