Maurice Maeterlinck and the Making of Modern Theatre [Hardcover]

Patrick McGuinness (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0198159773 | ISBN-13: 978-0198159773 | Publication Date: March 16, 2000

Maurice Maeterlinck has been called the 'prodigal father' of modern theatre. As Rilke put it, he shifted theatre's center of gravity, replacing action with inaction, events with the eventless, and dialogue with an expressive semantics of silence. This study, the first in over a decade, traces the development of Maeterlinck's dramatic vision of extraordinary originality and depth.

Editorial Reviews

Review

`This study amply prepares the reader for Maeterlinck's minimalism with a clear and wide-ranging exposition of his achievement, elucidating the context for his experiments in his first writings for the theatre and in his poetry.' W.L.Hodson, Modern Language Review

`McGuinness's book is well written and contains, in addition to his own stimulating readings of Maeterlinck's work, much useful information that had never been gathered into a single, concise source.' April Wuensch, Modern Language Notes

`McGuinness does a fine job of showing how, from the electicism of the Symbolists' theater and theoretical musings, certain common principles emerge' April Wuensch, Modern Language Notes

`the first full-length study in English to appear in over a decade' April Wuensch, Modern Language Notes

`Patrick McGuinness's study is a welcome addition to the slim corpus of recent work on Maeterlinck.' April Wuensch, Modern Language Notes

`It warms the heart to see university presses continuing to publish such scholarly monographs' Nicholas White, Journal of European Studies

`the theoretically-informed close readings are often leavened by fascinating minutiae' Nicholas White, Journal of European Studies

`an impressively broad artistic contextualization' Nicholas White, Journal of European Studies

`one of the great virtues of this book is precisely its willingness to reflect the density of the literary and critical archive' Nicholas White, Journal of European Studies

`McGuiness's discussion ... is rich and comprehensive ... a penetrating analysis.' D.A. Collins, Choice, July/Aug. 00.

About the Author

Patrick McGuinness is at St Anne's College, Oxford.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (March 16, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0198159773
• ISBN-13: 978-0198159773
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,505,209 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.