Paradox and grotesquerie are more than stylistic devices for Dürrenmatt: they are his reaction to our world, a world which, in contrast to earlier times, has lost all unity, has become chaotic beyond all comprehension, and therefore terrifying. (p. 328)

George Santayana calls the grotesque "… an interesting effect produced by such a transformation of an ideal type as exaggerates one of its elements or combines it with other types." Through this transformation the artist regains his freedom, and, with it, subject material which can no longer be found but must be invented, for parody and grotesque presuppose invention. This deliberate distortion of history and this sovereign willfulness in treating historical figures is illustrated in Es steht geschrieben (It stands written), in the figure of Nebukadnezar in Ein Engel Kommt nach Babylon (An Angel Comes to Babylon) and in practically all characters and events in Romulus der Grosse.

Why...