1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910809025003321

Autore

Abbott Anthony S

Titolo

The vital lie : reality and illusion in modern drama / / Anthony S. Abbott

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Tuscaloosa : , : University of Alabama Press, , 1989

©1989

ISBN

0-8173-8253-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xiv, 239 pages)

Disciplina

809.2/04

809.204

Soggetti

Drama - 19th century - History and criticism

Drama - 20th century - History and criticism

Illusion in literature

Reality in literature

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 230-233) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Contents; Preface: The Vital Lie; 1. Reality, Illusion, and the More Abundant Life; Part One: The Hegelians; 2. Henrik Ibsen; 3. August Strindberg; 4. Anton Chekhov; 5. George Bernard Shaw; 6. John Millington Synge; Part Two: Lost and Found; 7. Luigi Pirandello; 8. Bertolt Brecht; 9. T. S. Eliot; 10. Eugene O'Neill; 11. Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams; Part Three: Absurdism and After; 12. Samuel Beckett and Eugene Ionesco; 13. Edward Albee; 14. Harold Pinter; 15. Theater as Reality/Reality as Theater; 16. Reality and the Hero; Notes; Bibliography; Permissions; Index

Sommario/riassunto

The Vital Lie is the first book to examine the reality-illusion conflict in modern drama from Ibsen to present-day playwrights. The book questions why vital lies, lies necessary for life itself, are such an obsessive concern for playwrights of the last hundred years. Using the work of fifteen playwrights, Abbott seeks to discover if modern playwrights treat illusions as helpful or necessary to life, or as signals of sicknesses from which human beings need to be cured.