Pinter Problem

Pinter Problem

In spite of steady growth in popularity, Pinter's plays have continued to elude adequate critical appraisal. Considering the last decade's scholarship, Austin E. Quigley attributes the impasse in Pinter criticism to the failure of Pinter's readers to appreciate the diversity of ways in which language can transmit information. This explanation places recent commentaries in a new light and enables the author to take a fresh approach to the plays themselves. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Pinter Problem

The Language of Silence

Examining the plays of Maeterlinck, Chekhov, Jean-Jacques Bernard, Pinter, Albee, and Beckett, this critical study exhibits the eloquence with which silence and inarticulateness portray the experience of inadequacy, incompleteness, impermanence, and uncertainty in early-twentieth-century drama. Moving on to post-World War II drama, the author explores the use of noneloquent speech and silence to convey the alienation and isolation engendered by the rise of political humanity.