The Critical Response to Arthur Miller

Transcription

1 The Critical Response to Arthur Miller Edited by and Michelle Cirulli Critical Responses in Arts and Letters, Number 45 Cameron Northouse. Series Adviser Westport, Connecticut London

2 Contents Acknowledgments Chronology xix xxi Introduction 1 Early Response to 1959 Arthur Miller's All My Sons Brings Genuine New Talent into the Coronet Theatre with an Excellent Cast of Actors 25 Brooks Atkinson Death of a Salesman: Arthur Miller's Tragedy of an Ordinary Man 27 Brooks Atkinson Arthur Miller Bowdlerizes Ibsen 30 Joseph Wood Krutch The Innocence of Arthur Miller 33 Eric Bentley The Realism of Arthur Miller 36 Raymond Williams Criticism Arthur Miller Out West 45 Henry Popkin

3 xiv Contents Arthur Miller and the Tradition of Tragedy 51 John Prudhoe Death of a Salesman: Tragic Myth in the Modern Theatre 61 Esther Merle Jackson Arthur Miller's Mea Culpa 72 Robert Brustein Muddy Track at Lincoln Center 76 Robert Brustein A Look at A View from the Bridge 79 Arthur Epstein The Empty Bench: Morality, Tragedy, and Arthur Miller 91 William R. Brashear The Fall and After Arthur Miller's Confession 102 Death of a Salesman and Arthur Miller's Search for Style 114 Arthur Oberg Linda's Role in Death of a Salesman 122 Guerin Bliquez An Enemy of the People: A Key to Arthur Miller's Art and Ethics 125 David Bronson Sociology and Social Literature: Work Alienation in the Plays of Arthur Miller 142 Paul Blumberg Criticism All About Talk: Arthur Miller's The Price 159 Gerald Weales Arthur Miller's Incident at Vichy: A Sartrean Interpretation 170 Lawrence Lowenthal

4 Contents xv Come Home to Maya 182 Gerald Weales The Tragedy of the American Dream in Death of a Salesman 185 Alfred Ferguson Eden and the Idiot Child: Arthur Miller's After the Fall 200 Clinton Burhans Criticism New Miller Drama: A Mosaic of the Depression 215 Arthur Miller's The Misfits: The Western Gunned Down 217 David Press Miller and Things 223 Marianne Boruch Society vs. The Individual in Arthur Miller's The Crucible 232 Jean-Marie Bonnet Gripping Revival of Miller's View from the Bridge 237 Death of a Salesman Is Reborn on Broadway 239 Rebirth of an American Dream 241 Richard Schickel History and Other Spectres in Arthur Miller's The Crucible 244 E. Miller Budick What Price Freedom? The Fall Revisited: Arthur Miller's The Creation of the World and Other Business 262 Power Play: Arthur Miller's The Archbishop's Ceiling 271 June Schlueter Memories Infuse Two Miller One-Acters 276

5 xvi Contents Miller Drama All My Sons Still Speaks to Today 278 Arthur Miller: Public Issues, Private Tensions 280 Robert A. Martin Contemporary Criticism Actor's Theatre Opens Crucible 289 Miller's Memory Bank of a Play 291 Arthur Miller: "Why Can't I Say T?" 293 David Sovran Arthur Miller, Alive and Home Again 318 Melanie Kirkpatrick Arthur Miller's Circles of Responsibility: A View from the Bridge and Beyond 320 Donald P. Costello Dead Souls 330 John Lahr "How to Contain the Impulse of Betrayal": A Sartrean Reading of The Ride Down Mount Morgan 334 The Man Who Had All the Luck: Miller's Answer to The Master Builder 343 Brenda Murphy Strong Gods and Sexuality: Guilt and Responsibility in the Later Plays of Arthur Miller 351 Thomas E. Porter Arthur Miller and His Influence on Contemporary American Drama 366 Matthew C. Roudane The Early Plays 374

6 Contents xvn All My Sons 400 The Crucible 412 Marie Morgan Reconnecting and Reasserting the Self: The Art of Compromise in Arthur Miller's The Last Yankee 416 Susan C, W. Abbotson Willy Loman: Icon of Business Culture 431 Brenda Murphy From Loman to Lyman: The Salesman Forty Years On 441 Susan C. W. Abbotson Arthur Miller: Time Traveler 449 Celebrating Salesman 462 Matthew C. Roudane Poetry and Politics in The Crucible 468 Stephen A. Marino Resurrection Blues 487 Finishing the Picture 503 Arthur Miller and the Art of the Possible 510 Bibliography 527 Selected Additional Readings 531 Index 541