- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Classics (Feb 8 1996)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 014018922X
- ISBN-13: 978-0140189223
- Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 12.8 x 1.4 cm
- Shipping Weight: 204 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #383,576 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Details |
Product Description
Book Description
Pirandello (1867-1936) is the founding architect of twentieth-century drama, brilliantly innovatory in his forms and themes, and in the combined energy, imagination and visual colours of his theatre. This volume of plays, translated from the Italian by Mark Musa, opens with Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello's most popular and controversial work in which six characters invade the stage and demand to be included in the play. The tragedy "Henry IV" dramatizes the lucid madness of a man who may be King. In "So It Is (If You Think So)", the townspeople exercise a morbid curiosity attempting to discover 'the truth' about the Ponza family. Each of these plays can lay claim to being Pirandello's masterpiece, and in exploring the nature of human personality each one stretches the resources of drama to their limits.
About the Author
Luigi Pirandello was born of rich, middle-class parents in Girgenti (Agrigento), Sicily, on 28 June 1867. As a young man he studied at the Universities of Palermo, Rome, and Bonn, where he gained his doctorate in 1891. His first published work, Mal giocondo (1889), was a collection of poems. It was followed by other volumes of poems, critical essays, novels, short stories, and over forty plays. In 1894 he married Antoinetta Portulano, the daughter of his father's business associate. Financial disaster and a severe illness brought on by the birth of their third child drove his wife to a hysterical form of insanity. Only in 1918, when her presence in the family constituted a real threat to their daughter's safety did Pirandello agree to have his wife committed to an asylum. The enormous emotional strain he felt at this time is reflected in the intense pessimism found in his work. Pirandello's first real success in the theatre came about in 1921 when Six Characters in Search of an Author was performed. Henry IV followed the next year and confirmed his position as a playwright. In the following years Pirandello travelled abroad extensively. He embarked on a career as a producer and in 1925 founded his Art Theatre in Rome. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934 and died in Rome on 10 December 1936.
Mark Musa is a professor at the Center for Italian Studies at Indiana University. A former Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellow, Musa is the author of a highly acclaimed translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Mark Musa is a professor at the Center for Italian Studies at Indiana University. A former Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellow, Musa is the author of a highly acclaimed translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Mark Musa is a professor at the Center for Italian Studies at Indiana University. A former Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellow, Musa is the author of a highly acclaimed translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Mark Musa is a professor at the Center for Italian Studies at Indiana University. A former Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellow, Musa is the author of a highly acclaimed translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
The TECHNICIAN, huffing and muttering, picks up the wooden boards and goes off. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
The TECHNICIAN, huffing and muttering, picks up the wooden boards and goes off. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A nearly flawless work of the theater well ahead of its time,
This review is from: Six Characters in Search of an Author and Other Plays (Paperback)
As with Laurence Sterne's TRISTRAM SHANDY, Pirandello's 1921 masterpiece, SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR, was well ahead of its time. It confronts issues in the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, postmodernism (structuralism and deconstruction) as well as prefacing experimental theater, metatheater, and performance art. Pirandello's work is a nearly flawless play which breeches the topics of self-identity (a la Descartes), truth and illusion (before Albee), and aesthetics (questioning the legitimizing factor in Aristotle's theory of catharsis). Furthermore, it forces the audience--as too many works of art fail to do--to think without lapsing into philosophic didacticism. Highly recommended.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Masterpiece,
By
This review is from: Six Characters in Search of an Author and Other Plays (Paperback)
Pirandello had writer's block. Luisa felt sorry for him. "Just write whatever's in your head", she said, "That's what you're always telling me. Everyone who's ever written a play-- I suppose that leaves out the critics and the university professors--knows that YOU don't write the play, you let the CHARACTERS write the play. Here", she said, "have a glass of wine. It'll help relax you." Two days later, when he was done, Luigi took the manuscript over to Alphonse, the literature teacher. Alphonse declared, after scanning it, "You've written a masterpiece!" "Really?" said Pirandello, "I mean, of course!" Alphonse stood up and gestured grandly with his arms, saying "Ah, the metaphysical ramifications! Reality and the imagination! You've started Postmodernism!" So Luigi did a little dance and headed home to bed.
5.0 out of 5 stars
One review in search of a reviewer,
By A Customer
This review is from: Six Characters in Search of an Author and Other Plays (Paperback)
He must be around here somewhere. Let me see, hello? Mr. Reviewer? Ms. Reviewer? How I am I supposed to start this? I guess I am a review for the Luigi Pirandello play, "Six Characters in Search of an Author." What am I supposed to say about it? I guess I could say that it is a wonderful piece about the search for truth. A reflection of the human experience. Dazzled and question ridden, on a journey to nowhere. But I haven't even read the thing! Mr. Reviewer? Ms. Reviewer? Tell me what it's about so I could have some idea to tell the readers out there. What? I can't hear you. Pirndello's best play? A post modern triumph? An easily stageable highway? Substitute for butter? What? I give up, you wicked person. Find someone else to be your slave, I am going to sleep now
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