Estimate of Marcel's drama can satisfy several related curiosities: the function in a distinguished philosophical career of these numerous dramatic compositions; the kind of play that will satisfy a thinker's need to yoke a basically religious speculation and dramatic composition; and the light that Marcel's theatre casts on a more general attempt to explore religious themes in the modern theatre. These are interrelated questions, and the best way to take them up is to recognize that Marcel, as a dramatist, remains a certain kind of philosopher and finds a place for his dramatic compositions in perspectives traced in general by his thought.

The person who has read Marcel's philosophical "journals" (the term Marcel frequently applies to his formal philosophical works) as Being and Having, The Mystery of Being, Homo Viator, and Creative Fidelity can place Marcel in a general tradition of twentieth century philosophical speculation and can also...