Sermon and Spectacle: J.B. Priestley's An Inspector Calls

This essay argues for a reassessment of J.B. Priestley's place in the canon of twentieth-century British drama on the basis of his literary craftsmanship. Priestley's work tends to be dismissed as too didactic and popular to warrant serious study. An Inspector Calls belies that assessment: while on its surface it is a simple plea in favour of England's post–World War II move to socialism, the play's surprising formal intricacy reveals an exemplary partnership of form and content. The formal analysis performed here attends to the collision of dramatic genres – the medieval mystery or miracle play and the modern mystery as detective story – that structures the play as a series of oppositions, provides the basis for its characterization, and lends urgency to its ethical choices. The combination of Priestley's comprehensive political vision – which ranges from the granular level of individual consciousness to a theory of history itself – and his skilful aesthetic strategies delivers drama that is intellectually engaging and entertaining.