Harold Pinter and the Language of Cultural Power
Harold Pinter and the Language of Cultural Power

Author: Marc Silverstein

Publisher: Bucknell University Press

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 196

ISBN-13: 9780838752364

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For all their attempts to "own" language, Pinter's characters discover that words constitute alienable property; that language forms, de-forms, and re-forms subjectivity; that, as a system preceding the individual, language carries embedded within it the values, desires, and imperatives of the Other - the dominant cultural order. By introducing questions of subject position and ideology into his discussion, author Marc Silverstein shows how the plays exhibit a political dimension largely ignored by the bulk of Pinter criticism, which attempts to classify his oeuvre as a form of absurdist drama. It is Silverstein's contention that Pinter does not concern himself with the fate of the individual lost in an incomprehensible and meaningless universe (the "absurdist" Pinter), but instead explores the vicissitudes of living within ideological, discursive, and social structures that always exceed the subject.

Mountain Language
Mountain Language

Author: Harold Pinter

Publisher: Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 28

ISBN-13: 9780822207771

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THE STORY: Furthering the theme of political consciousness expressed so forcefully and eloquently in his earlier play One for the Road, the author's present play takes place in an anonymous country where individual liberties have been forfeited to the state. Set in a prison where the inmates are forbidden to speak their own language, the play is comprised of four terse, arresting scenes which make masterful use of nuance and subtle understatement (with sudden bursts of violence) to create an overwhelming sense of terror and shocking futility. In one scene uniformed officers taunt and belittle the women who have come to visit their men, who are political prisoners; in another a mother and son are allowed to speak only in the language of the capital, which they do not know; in the third scene a young woman accidentally sees a guard holding a limp, tortured man whom she knows to be her husband; and, in the final scene the old woman reunited with her bloody, trembling son and, though told she may now speak, she has been silenced so long that she cannot, or will not, do so. Quintessentially Pinteresque in its skillful use of pregnant pauses, resonant images and nightmarish utterances, the play is both enthralling theatre and a stirring reminder of what can happen when the power of the state becomes all-encompassing and the rights of the individual are forfeited, whether through neglect or weakness of will.

Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter

Author: Graham Saunders

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-06-05

Total Pages: 184

ISBN-13: 1000890945

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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.

The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter
The Cambridge Companion to Harold Pinter

Author: Peter Raby

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2009-03-19

Total Pages: 349

ISBN-13: 0521886090

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

Pinter at 70
Pinter at 70

Author: Lois Gordon

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-02-25

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 1135347395

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This comprehensive and authoritative casebook includes cornerstone essays on Pinter's creative process, his politics, film adaptations, and acting career. It also includes a collection of photos found nowhere else that document Pinter's "golden time"--his early acting days in Ireland--, a substantial introduction, a chronology, and bibliography.

Harold Pinter
Harold Pinter

Author: Basil Chiasson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-01-28

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1350133655

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This important book offers a thematic collection of critical essays, ideal for undergraduate courses on modern British theatre, on Harold Pinter's theatrical works, alongside new interviews with contemporary theatre practitioners. The life and works of Harold Pinter (1930–2008), a pivotal figure in British theatre, have been widely discussed, debated and celebrated internationally. For over five decades, Pinter's work traversed and redefined various forms and genres, constantly in dialogue with, and often impacting the work of, other writers, artists and activists. Combining a reconsideration of key Pinter scholarship with new contexts, voices and theoretical approaches, this book opens up fresh insights into the author's work, politics, collaborations and his enduring status as one of the world's foremost dramatists. Three sections re-contextualize Pinter as a cultural figure; explore and interrogate his influence on contemporary British playwriting; and offer a series of original interviews with theatre-makers engaging in the staging of Pinter's work today. Reconsiderations of Pinter's relationship to literary and theatrical movements such as Modernism and the Theatre of the Absurd; interrogations of the role of class, elitism and religious and cultural identity sit alongside chapters on Pinter's personal politics, specifically in relation to the Middle East.

The Plays of Harold Pinter
The Plays of Harold Pinter

Author: Andrew Wyllie

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-09-16

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 1137315679

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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 Routledge Companion to Literature and Class
The Routledge Companion to Literature and Class

Author: Gloria McMillan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-09-01

Total Pages: 459

ISBN-13: 1000413977

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The Routledge Companion to Literature and Class offers a comprehensive and fresh assessment of the cultural impact of class in literature, analyzing various innovative, interdisciplinary approaches of textual analysis and intersections of literature, including class subjectivities, mental health, gender and queer studies, critical race theory, quantitative and scientific methods, and transnational perspectives in literary analysis. Utilizing these new methods and interdisciplinary maps from field-defining essayists, students will become aware of ways to bring these elusive texts into their own writing as one of the parallel perspectives through which to view literature. This volume will provide students with an insight into the history of the intersections of class, theory of class and invisibility in literature, and new trends in exploring class in literature. These multidimensional approaches to literature will be a crucial resource for undergraduate and graduate students becoming familiar with class analysis, and will offer seasoned scholars the most significant critical approaches in class studies.

The Routledge Encyclopedia of Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century
The Routledge Encyclopedia of Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century

Author: Sorrel Kerbel

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-11-23

Total Pages: 1394

ISBN-13: 1135456070

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Now available in paperback for the first time, Jewish Writers of the Twentieth Century is both a comprehensive reference resource and a springboard for further study. This volume: examines canonical Jewish writers, less well-known authors of Yiddish and Hebrew, and emerging Israeli writers includes entries on figures as diverse as Marcel Proust, Franz Kafka, Tristan Tzara, Eugene Ionesco, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Arthur Miller, Saul Bellow, Nadine Gordimer, and Woody Allen contains introductory essays on Jewish-American writing, Holocaust literature and memoirs, Yiddish writing, and Anglo-Jewish literature provides a chronology of twentieth-century Jewish writers. Compiled by expert contributors, this book contains over 330 entries on individual authors, each consisting of a biography, a list of selected publications, a scholarly essay on their work and suggestions for further reading.

Pinter Et Cetera
Pinter Et Cetera

Author: Craig N. Owens

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2020-07-13

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 1527556603

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PINTER ET CETERA, edited by Craig N. Owens, is among the first volumes published since playwright Harold Pinter's death to account for the many ways his poems, plays, fiction, screenwriting, and public statements have have influenced the creative work of artists and writers worldwide. It collects nine essays by nine scholars from five nations, each approaching Pinter's work from a different perspective. Together, these essays offer a compelling argument for thinking of Pinter not merely as a unique writer whose individual genius has introduced the world to a particular aesthetic, but more importantly, as an artist working within numerous traditions, influencing and influenced by the work of painters, installation artists, film directors, photographers, poets and, of course, theatre-makers. PINTER ET CETERA is a bold step toward expanding our understanding of Pinter and establishing its importance beyond the absurdist stage. Contributors include Judith Roof, Ubiratan Paiva de Oliveira, Kyounghye Kwon, Mark Taylor-Batty, Michael Stuart Lynch, Jeanne Colleran, Andrew Wyllie, Christopher Wixson, and Lance Norman.