Arthur Miller by Leonard Moss, and: Arthur Miller, Dramatist by Edward Murray (review)

1967 BOOK REVIEWS 329 pas, enfin, cette peinture d'une humanite grotesque, grima,?-nte, perpetuellement harcelee, ce melange de souffrances et de rires, qui aboutirent a une conception baroque du monde, a laquelle fut sensible, entre autres, un Ionesco. Mais il est vrai aussi quece theAtre est composite, bAtard, et A. Weiss a raison de rappeler ses sources picturales et ce qu'il doit aux expressionnistes. Mais i1 faudrait preciser et enrichir ces donnees, car une des caracteristiques de Ghelderode est d'~tre Ie creuset oil se sont fondus, pNe-m~le, les procedes du grand-guignol philosophique a la Maeterlinck, les techniques cinematographiques du grand spectacle, l'inspiration fiamande, et Calderon (voir pp. 41 et 74-76), et Lope de Vega, et Shakespeare, et les ressources du theAtre "impressif" d'un Saint-Georges de Bouhelier . . . Car, ne Ie perdons jamais de vue, cet homme qui n'aimait pas les livres, avait tout lui Enfin, on ne saurait ignorer la langue de Ghelderode, cette langue dont il a fait un outil bien a lui, mais dont il faudrait dem~ler si eUe lui vient davantage de Rabelais et de Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde, qu'il pratiquait, ou de son maitre immediat en archa'isme et couleurs verbales, Charles de Coster. En somme, la critique d'A. Weiss est juste, mais fragmentaire, et, par la, quelque peu tendancieuse, puisqu'elle ne s'attache guere qu'a ruiner, en Ghelderode, Ie soi-disant philosophe. Mais eUe a surtout Ie merite de lancer un cri d'alarme, de mettre un frein a l'admiration inconditionnelle d'une critique qui a souvent dissimuIe qu'eUe ne comprenait pas Ghelderode, tout simplement parce qu'il n'y avait rien a comprendre. Le clinquant, les artifices, les procedes mecaniques ne sont, en effet, que trop presents chez Ghelderode et son indigence est rrelle sur Ie plan des idees. Tout cela, Aureliu Weiss l'a bien vu et il a eu raison de Ie dire avec nettete, m~me s'il est parfois excessif, emporte par sa mauvaise humeur et sa deception : il dessine ainsi, une saine et vigoureuse reaction. RAYMOND TROUSSON The University, Brussels ARTHUR MILLER, by Leonard Moss, Twayne United States Authors Series, New York, N. Y., Ig67, 160 pp. Price $3.95. ARTHUR MILLER, DRAMATIST, by Edward Murray, Ungar, New York, N. Y., Ig67' 186 pp. Price $5.00. Everyone, it seems, has been studied in depth except Arthur Miller. The two studies here reviewed, then, are long overdue and gratefully welcomed. Both Professor Moss and Professor Murray make it their business to examine Miller's overall strengths and weaknesses as a dramatist. Murray's book is described on its cover as CIa study in depth of the important plays of a major American writer." Neither Miller's life nor his minor works are considered. Moss's study, on the other hand, being one of the Twayne United States Authors Series, aims at a more comprehensive survey of Miller's life and work. Murray's book is a painstaking explication of the plays themselves, primarily, though not exclusively, in terms of their structure-a kind of Chicago school new criticism. It has a selective, somewhat random bibliography presented rather confusingly in lieu of chapter notes. Moss's study is far more useful to the scholar as well as to the general reader, at whom it is more deliberately aimed. There are extensive notes and an excellent selective critical bibliography. In spite of their differences in approach, both books come to roughly the same estimation of Miller's work, finding him at his best when he is least didactic. Yet the two come to quite different views of some of the individual plays. Murray attaches more importance to structure than to anything else, Moss to dialogue. For 330 MODERN DRAMA December Moss most of Miller's plays are seriously marred because of passages of pretentious dialogue. The limitations of this attitude are evident in that it leads him to overpraise A Memory of Two Mondays and severely qualify his admiration for The Crucible. Likewise, Murray's penchant for structural unity causes him to overpraise Incident at Vichy, blinds him to the emotional complexity and theatrical...