The Maypole in the Strand

ISBN: 9780533133093

出版年: 2001-5

定价: 66.00

内容简介

Introduction
A study of the works of Sir Arthur Wing Pinero and Henry Arthur
Jones is necessarily not so much an essay in literary criticism as it is
the performance of a literary post-mortem. Less than a century has
passed since their deaths (Jones died in 1929??? Pinero in 1934)??? but
(at least) eight years have gone by since their demise as seriously
considered writers. There would be nothing remarkable in this had
Jones and Pinero been run-of-the-mill popular playwrights. No-
body expected such successful playwrights of their day as Haddon
Chambers??? R. C. Carton??? W. G. Wills??? or Sydney Grundy to last
much beyond their own times; but Pinero and Jones were different.
With the sole exception of George Bernard Shaw??? the leading crit-
ics-literary critics??? not just play reviewers--writing between 1885
and 1910 looked upon these two men as regenerators of the Eng-
lish drama??? important men of letters??? profound thinkers??? sensitive
observers and portrayers of human psychology??? and masters of the-
atrical form. In short??? they were looked upon as part of the main-
stream of English literature??? writers whose work would last???
theatrical innovators??? and dramatic pioneers who had restored to
the English drama the elevated seriousness of literary form and the
philosophical profundity of intellectual theme that it had lacked
since Elizabethan times. Their careers are object lessons for dra-
matic critics. Dramatic criticism is??? in a sense??? literatT bookmak-
ing: the work of the critic boils down to calculating the odds on an
author s reputation. To write a favourable criticism of a new author
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