Twentieth Century Drama by Bamber Gascoigne (review)

1%3 BOOK REVIEWS .. 93 periods, rather than to develop a theoretical definition of tragedy. This leads, as Henri Gouhier (doubtless he most important philosopher of drama in France today) says, to a great richness, for these scholars are attempting to perceive Ie tragique, which, unlike la tragedie, is a dimension of real existence. The essays constantly remind us that real scholarship is not only imaginative and exciting, but at the same time is modest and liberal in its attitudes. The lack of a narrow, dogmatic, or parochial outlook is, of course, not surprising in a gathering including such distinguished men of letters as A.D.F. Kitto, Raymond Lebegue, Paul Renucci, Jacques Scherer, Jacques Madaule. Colette Audry, Roland Caillois, Henri Gouhier, Jean Jacquot, etc. "It appears," says Henri Gouhier in "Tragique et Transcendance," his introduction to the general discussion with which the conference closed, "It appears that the organizers wished to discover just what these works we call tragic are, not in order to find a definition in so many words, but in order to ascertain whether among all the different works we include under this tag, there is some kind of residue, something common to them all which might correspond to our sense .of the tragic." The five chapters of Le Theatre Tragique are as follows: I-The Ancient World (Greek tragedy, Latin tragedy, and a penetrating comparison of "The Decline of Tragedy in Athens and England," by Professor Kitto. II-From the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. III-Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Renaissance and Counter-Reformation in Italy, the Elizabethans, Siglo de oro, Le Grand Si(:cle, The Low Countries). IV-From "Sturm und Drang" to Romanticism. V-From Naturalism to the Present (including particularly perceptive articles on Ibsen, Claudel and Sartre). The final article in the book is a lengthy, but terse and extremely intelligent, synthesis by M. Jacquot,of the essays presented and the discussions which took place at Royaumont. It serves either as conclusion or as a general introduction to the work. Le Theatre Tragique, like the other volume published by the Editions du CNRS, is a handsomely printed, solidly bound volume, and belongs, like them, on the shelf of every serious student of theater. Leonard C. Pronko Pomona College TWENTIETH CENTURY DRAMA, by Bamber Gascoigne, Hutchinson and Company , London, 1962, 216 pp. Price ?p/. Whatever one's view of twentieth century drama, one hopes, when commencing a book with a title like that of Mr. Bamber Gascoigne's, to complete it feeling satisfied that one has learned all there is to learn about a period in dramatic history that seems acutely disordered, rather directionless from decade to decade, and not up to snuff in far too many ways. Learn, one can, from Mr. Gascoigne, but not all that one would like. After two readings of his book, I gather that his intention was to provide the reader with a sense of direction, to indicate that underlying the variety in contemporary drama is an ordered development, and to insist that, over the last forty years, there have been peaks in playwriting as well as shallow, unenticing valleys. For such an intention Mr. Gascoigne deserves our esteem. In his Introduction he has cleared ground that needs brushing out pretty thoroughly when he asserts with unflinching conviction that contemporary drama begins with Pirandello and not with Ibsen, as the textbooks keep ~eIling us; and that the years of avant- 94 MODERN DRAMA May gardisme are actually behind us, so that today's emphasis on originality in the theater is decidedly misplaced. Such assertions will no doubt be upsetting to some, but they do wrench us into a new perspective, one badly needed if we are to understand the last four decades of western drama as they really were. Nevertheless, the gap .between intention and performance is evident throughout Mr. Gascoigne's ·book. In his determination to classify the predominant tendencies in the drama of the twenties, thirties, forties and fifties, he is given to generalizing so broadly that in time the reader begins to distrust him rather than be persuaded .by him. In Part I, restricted to discussion of subject-matter, Mr. Gascoigne defines the keynote...