The Playwright as Thinker

<div> <div>First published in 1946 <i>The Playwright as Thinker</i> is a classic work of drama criticism that helped create the intellectual environment in which serious American theater would thrive in the second half of the twentieth century. At the time of publishing most drama critics believed dramatic art deserved no intellectual status; Eric Bentley set out to prove them wrong. Focusing on the canonic playwrights Strindberg Ibsen Pirandello Sartre and Brecht Bentley viewed the playwright as thinker and his survey of over 150 years of dramatic art provided in essence an intellectual history of Europe. This edition not only contains the original long-suppressed foreword in which Bentley lambastes the climate of Broadway at the time but also the author's 1987 afterword.<br>  </div> </div>