Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T11:59:46.492Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Homecoming

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 November 2021

Extract

Eliot, speaking of Jonson, said that poetry dealing with the surface of life requires great deliberateness and simplicity of effect. Pinter is a poet of the surface. His manipulation of performance conventions suggests the “comedy of manners” in its dependence on standard theatrical devices and tightly constructed exploitation of speech and gesture patterns, disabused of conscious causality and motivation data. He differs radically from most comic theatre in two important respects: his plays do not aim (or pretend) to reflect or represent society in a typical, satiric, or parodic way; and he effectively eliminates plot as even a structural element (which is one of his similarities to Beckett).

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Tulane Drama Review 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)