The Theatre of Revolt: Studies in Modern Drama from Ibsen to Genet by Robert Brustein (review)

1966 BOOK REVIEWS 231 have testified to Buchner's influence on their works while critics are startled by stylistic similarities between his Danton's Death and Beckett's Waiting for Godot. It seems that the young genius who died at the age of twenty-three in 1837 has more in common with the spirit of the Twentieth Century than he had with his own time which did not recognize him. It is, therefore, eminently appropriate that a study of Buchner has been included in the meritorious series on Crosscurrents /Modern Critics} so that American readers unfamiliar with German may be introduced to the dramatist. Professor Lindenberger's book is primarily an interpretation of Buchner;s four surviving works: the dramas Danton's Death and Woyzeck} the comedy Leonce and Lena} and the story Lenz} prefaced by a (somewhat skimpy) biographical sketch, and concluded by a chapter on "Buchner and Literary Tradition." Thus, we have less of a traditional monograph and even less of a full biography, but rather a collection of separate essays that could almost have been published independently. As a result of this method, the whole Buchner never emerges as he does in the best German studies by Karl Vietor and Hans Mayer, and the problematical relationship between the dramatist's attitude toward politics and philosophy and the fatalism of his plays is not adequately explored. Professor Lindenberger's study would have gained in depth and illuminated more sharply one of the most iconoclastic and authentic geniuses of all literature if he had made a greater attempt to relate the man Buchner in his contemporary setting to the works themselves. Although this book is addressed to the reader who is unable to comprehend the original German, it is more than a mere introduction because it does not only presuppose some familiarity with the works of Buchner but also with other German writers such as Gottsched, Goethe, Lenz, Schiller, Kleist, Grabbe, Hauptmann , and Wedekind. Otherwise, certain allusions to the plays of these dramatists will be lost on the uninformed reader. Two strong points, however, ought to be singled out for praise: in his last chapter the author has given one of the best capsule summaries of Buchner's influence to be found in any language; the bibliography is intelligently selective and, consequently, of real use to students of comparative literature and the theater. In contradistinction to the editor of the Crosscurrents series who mainly dwelt on "the jutting red beard" of Professor Lindenberger in one of the most curiously inconsequential prefaces ever encountered, this reviewer would rather end his remarks by congratulating the author for a welcome job done with competent scholarship and reasonable brevity. CLAUDE HILL Rutgers University THE THEATRE OF REVOLT: STUDIES IN MODERN DRAMA FROM IBSEN TO GENET, by Robert Brustein, Atlantic-Little, Brown, Boston, 1964, 435 pp. Price $7.50. Once in a while, not often, one comes upon a book so brilliant he is almost blinded to its faults, a book so varied as to be rewarding, stimulating, and annoying all at the same time. Such a book is Professor Brustein's: invaluable to students of the drama, provocative and stimulating to professional and lay readers alike, helpful to practitioners, and both exciting and controversial for almost everybody on one point or another. The least-and the most-that can be said is that this is an important new book on modern drama and may well point some useful and valuable directions to a body of criticism that appears at present to be floundering in chaos and uncertainty. 232 MODERN DRAMA September The book's very strengths are also the source of its most serious weaknesses, a not uncommon circumstance in scholarship as well as in life. First, its strengths: the unified, thematic approach makes sense and is well used and demonstrated throughout, provided one accepts two necessary premises: that thematic criticism is valid and that these eight playwrights are the best choices with which to demonstrate the stated theme of revolt. Almost everything, then, depends on Professsor Brustein's definition or description of revolt. A general, even superficial, notion of revolt and rebellion would readily admit to the company of rebels six of...