A Holistic Perspective on Harold Pinter's Drama

A Holistic Perspective on Harold Pinter's Drama
Author: Aslı Tekinay
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 140
Release: 2023-11-17
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1527551636

This book provides a holistic approach to Harold Pinter’s plays, from his first play, The Room (1957), to his last play, Celebration (1999). The book is divided into three chapters, organized thematically. The first chapter discusses the early plays—the so-called comedies of menace—concerning the central tropes of secluded settings, intrusion from the outside, and disintegration of the self. The next chapter analyzes Pinter’s memory plays, concentrating on how characters shelter themselves from intrusions through silences and lies. The third chapter examines power games and abuse of power in political plays. The book contributes to the field of Pinter studies by pursuing the thematic, linguistic, and formal elements integral to his aesthetic productions, and delineates the properties that serve as constants in Pinter’s dramatic oeuvre, thus justifying the term Pinteresque: pauses and silences, subtext, anxiety, violence, menace, vulnerability, victimization, intrusion, and power games. The discussions highlight the presence of a solid foundation for his drama—such as his conviction that the past is in the present—and connect all the plays to one another.

The Plays of Harold Pinter

The Plays of Harold Pinter
Author: Andrew Wyllie
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2017-09-16
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137315679

This Reader's Guide synthesises the key criticism on Pinter's work over the last half century. Andrew Wyllie and Catherine Rees examine critical approaches and reactions to the major plays, charting the controversies which have arisen in response to Pinter's critiques of political and sexual issues. They consider criticism from the press and academics, on the themes of Absurdism, politics and gender identity. By placing this criticism in its historical context, this guide illustrates a transition from bewilderment and outrage to affection, fascination - and more outrage.

The Theatre of Harold Pinter

The Theatre of Harold Pinter
Author: Mark Taylor-Batty
Publisher: A&C Black
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2014-05-08
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1408175312

The Theatre of Harold Pinter offers a unique assesment of one of Britain's most influential dramatists, combining a chronological survey of Pinter's entire work for the stage with a series of incisive critical essays from leading scholars.

Gender and Power in the Plays of Harold Pinter

Gender and Power in the Plays of Harold Pinter
Author: Victor L. Cahn
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2011-12-20
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1610977513

During the past century, artists have been preoccupied with the search for meaning in a fragmented world. In this book Victor L. Cahn suggests that the plays of Harold Pinter dramatize how such a search leads characters to try to establish security through control of territory and people. The resulting conflict often manifests itself in a gender battle, in which men dominate the physical arena and women the emotional. The innate tension between the sexes is both comic and unnerving, but also reflects humanity's eternal quest for meaning and identity.

Contemporary British Drama, 1970–90

Contemporary British Drama, 1970–90
Author: Hersh Zeifman
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 361
Release: 1993-04-27
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1349108197

This book focuses exclusively on the exciting and provocative plays produced in England in the last two decades. The primary aim of the collection is to celebrate the truly remarkable range of British drama since 1970, by examining the work of fourteen important and representative playwrights. This emphasis on range applies not only to the dramatists chosen for inclusion but to the critics as well - specifically to the diversity of critical methodology demonstrated in their essays.

The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter

The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter
Author: Peter Raby
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 349
Release: 2009-03-19
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 0521886090

Updated edition of this popular Companion examining the wide range of Pinter's work, and his continuing impact and influence.

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter
Author: Graham Saunders
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2023-06-05
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1000890945

Harold Pinter provides an up-to-date analysis and reappraisal concerning the work of one of the most studied and performed dramatists in the world. Drawing extensively from The Harold Pinter Archive at the British Library as well as reviews and other critical materials, this book offers new insights into previously established views about his work. The book also analyses and reappraises specific key historical and contemporary productions, including a selection of Pinter’s most significant screenplays. In particular, this volume seeks to assess Pinter’s critical reputation and legacy since his death in 2008. These include his position as a political writer and political activist – from disassociation and neutrality on the subject until relatively late in his career when his drama sought to explicitly address questions of political dissent and torture by totalitarian regimes. The book revisits some familiar territories such as Pinter’s place as a British absurdist and the role memory plays in his work, but it also sets out to explore new territories such as Pinter’s changing attitudes towards gender in the light of #MeToo and queer politics and how in particular a play such as The Caretaker (1960) through several key productions has brought the issues of race into sharper focus. Part of the Routledge Modern and Contemporary Dramatist series, Harold Pinter provides an essential and accessible guide to the dramatists’ work.

Pinter's Comic Play

Pinter's Comic Play
Author: Elin Diamond
Publisher: Bucknell University Press
Total Pages: 260
Release: 1985
Genre: Drama
ISBN: 9780838750681

Examines the basis of Harold Pinter's tense comedy and how it functions in his plays as well as covering the major drama from The Room to Other Places. Diamond argues that the metaphysical fear and emptiness so characteristic of the Pinter situation are inseparable from his use and abuse of literary and popular comic traditions.

Towards a 'Natural' Narratology

Towards a 'Natural' Narratology
Author: Monika Fludernik
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2002-11
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1134802595

In this ground breaking work of synthesis, Monika Fludernik combines insights from literary theory and linguistics to provide a challenging new theory of narrative. This book is both an historical survey and theoretical study, with the author drawing on an enormous range of examples from the earliest oral study to contemporary experimental fiction. She uses these examples to prove that recent literature, far from heralding the final collapse of narrative, represents the epitome of a centuries long developmental process.