In the following essay, Hinchliffe offers synopses of Pinter's works and of critical responses to them.

In the following essay, Hinchliffe offers synopses of Pinter's works and of critical responses to them.

In the following essay, Kerr argues that not only is Pinter an existentialist writer, but that his plays are written in an existentialist manner.

In the following essay, Kerr argues that not only is Pinter an existentialist writer, but that his plays are written in an existentialist manner.

In the following essay, Orley examines the elements of horror and menace in Pinter’s plays

In the following essay, Orley examines the elements of horror and menace in Pinter’s plays

In the following essay, Nightingale examines Pinter's political commitments and argues that their expression in his later plays lessens the quality of those plays.

In the following essay, Nightingale examines Pinter's political commitments and argues that their expression in his later plays lessens the quality of those plays.

In the following essay, Kennedy surveys Pinter's use of language, examining how he abstracts it from concrete meaning and makes language a dramatic rather than discursive element in his plays.

In the following essay, Kennedy surveys Pinter's use of language, examining how he abstracts it from concrete meaning and makes language a dramatic rather than discursive element in his plays.

In the following essay, Merritt examines Pinter’s shift towards political drama in his works of the 1980s.

In the following essay, Merritt examines Pinter’s shift towards political drama in his works of the 1980s.

In the following essay, Mengel examines the themes of isolation and loneliness in A Kind of Alaska, Victoria Station and Family Voices.

In the following essay, Mengel examines the themes of isolation and loneliness in A Kind of Alaska, Victoria Station and Family Voices.

In the following essay, Saltz examines the difference between concept and meaning in the language of Pinter's plays.

In the following essay, Saltz examines the difference between concept and meaning in the language of Pinter's plays.

In the following essay, Knowles surveys the plays written between 1984 and 1993, emphasizing the continuity of themes from Pinter’s earlier, detached period to the later, overtly engaged plays.

In the following essay, Knowles surveys the plays written between 1984 and 1993, emphasizing the continuity of themes from Pinter’s earlier, detached period to the later, overtly engaged plays.

In the following essay, Nelson explicates The Homecoming by associating it with the biblical stories of the Prodigal Son and Ruth, and with Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida.

In the following essay, Gordon traces the manner in which Pinter moves from the analytic to the lyrical form of language in his plays.

In the following essay, Gordon traces the manner in which Pinter moves from the analytic to the lyrical form of language in his plays.

In the following review, O'Toole discusses the development of Pinter's political commitments as expressed in his plays.

In the following review, Mendelsohn provides an overview of theater festivals paying tribute to Pinter, asserting that the Harold Pinter Festival ultimately “exposed Pinter's weaknesses and pretensions as much as it did his strengths.” Mendelsohn applauds Pinter's most recent work, Celebration, as both the funniest play he's ever written and his first “deeply and movingly political” play.

In the following essay, Cohn discusses the retributive role of villains in Pinter's plays

In the following essay, Cohn discusses the retributive role of villains in Pinter's plays

In the following essay, Warner argues that The Homecoming asks the audience to reevaluate their expectations and values.

In the following essay, States examines the use and significance of irony in characterization, situation, and language in Pinter's The Homecoming.

In the following essay, Bogumil looks at the role and meaning of games in The Birthday Party.

In the following essay, Hinchliffe provides an overview of Pinter’s plays from No Man’s Land to Players.

In the following essay, Kaufman argues that the game of blindman's buff, central to The Birthday Party, provides an expressive structure for what Pinter sees as inherent human traits: a struggle for mastery and hostility.

In the following essay, Esslin traces the depiction of cruelty in Pinter's plays from the metaphysical realm in his early plays to the actual realm in later plays as Pinter became more politically aware.

In the following essay, Esslin traces the depiction of cruelty in Pinter's plays from the metaphysical realm in his early plays to the actual realm in later plays as Pinter became more politically aware.

In the following essay, Hynes explores Pinter's visions of morality and values.

In the following essay, Hynes explores Pinter's visions of morality and values.

In the following essay, Stamm praises The Hothouse, an early play Pinter originally suppressed, but then produced in 1980.

In the following essay, Storch argues that Pinter's plays are about the anxiety and menace Pinter sees at the heart of the bourgeois family.

In the following essay, Storch argues that Pinter's plays are about the anxiety and menace Pinter sees at the heart of the bourgeois family.

In the following essay, Copeland asserts that the time has come for a major reevaluation of Pinter's career and of his legacy to British theater.

In the following essay, Norrick and Baker assert that much of the humor in Pinter's early plays derives from his masterful use of typical, everyday speech.

In the following interview, Pinter discusses his political orientation and his treatment of the themes of power and powerlessness in his plays.

In the following essay, Knowles discusses references to the ancient myth of Pygmalion in A Kind of Alaska, as well as several of Pinter's other plays. Knowles asserts that Pinter's references to Pygmalion function as an allegory for the creative process.

In the following essay, Knowles explores Pinter's use of the Pygmalion-Galatea myth as a theme in several of his plays.

In the following essay, Knowles explores Pinter's use of the Pygmalion-Galatea myth as a theme in several of his plays.

In the following essay, Dick examines the themes in Pinter’s work and considers Pinter's plays in the context of the renaissance of English theater in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

In the following essay, Dick examines the themes in Pinter’s work and considers Pinter's plays in the context of the renaissance of English theater in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

In the following essay, Richardson considers whether the two apparently separate narrators in Landscape form one integrated narrative, and if “narrativity” is the result of chronology, causality, or juxtaposition.

In the following essay, Richardson considers whether the two apparently separate narrators in Landscape form one integrated narrative, and if “narrativity” is the result of chronology, causality, or juxtaposition.

In the following essay, Murphy focuses on The Caretaker, explaining the importance of attending to action indicated by the stage directions as much as to the dialogue in Pinter's plays.

Harold Pinter has listened to the labored pulse of his century, limned its temper, and perhaps more importantly, recreated its frightening silences. In a time which Tiutchev adumbrated as the "hour of wordless longing," Pinter serves us well by reminding us that we live in the space between words. (p. 1) Dramatic irony emerges from the disparity between expectation and result…. But Pinter's irony goes beyond "dramatic" or "Sophoclean" irony; it is exis...

In the following explication of The Birthday Party, Lesser compares Pinter's worldview to that of Kafka's.

In the following review, King applauds recent productions of Pinter's One for the Road, Mountain Language, and Ashes to Ashes.

In the following essay, Gussow provides an overview of Pinter's life and career.

In the following essay, Thomson provides an overview of Pinter’s plays, declaring the earlier ones authentic and superior to the later, which he finds formula-driven and lacking in dramatic drive.

In the following essay, Thomson provides an overview of Pinter’s plays, declaring the earlier ones authentic and superior to the later, which he finds formula-driven and lacking in dramatic drive.

In the following essay, Rose explores the influence of the interior and exterior urban environment on Pinter’s plays.

In the following essay, Rose explores the influence of the interior and exterior urban environment on Pinter’s plays.

In the following essay, Morrison argues that Pinter developed a new form of dramatic irony, not the classical irony where the audience knows things the characters do not, but an irony resulting from the characters' knowing things the audience does not.

In the following essay, Morrison argues that Pinter developed a new form of dramatic irony, not the classical irony where the audience knows things the characters do not, but an irony resulting from the characters' knowing things the audience does not.

In the following essay, Rickert argues that contrary to Pinter’s assertions, he is not a conventional playwright, and does not have the traditional aim of exploring social forces or analyzing social order, but is concerned with investigating the problems of identity and communication.

In the following essay, Rickert argues that contrary to Pinter’s assertions, he is not a conventional playwright, and does not have the traditional aim of exploring social forces or analyzing social order, but is concerned with investigating the problems of identity and communication.

In the following essay, Steyn discusses elements of political commentary in Pinter's plays.

In the following essay, Gillen examines the division between the known and the unknown worlds in Pinter's plays.

In the following essay, Gillen examines the division between the known and the unknown worlds in Pinter's plays.

In the following essay, Aylwin reviews the way characters in Old Times determine their identities, and interact with each other on the basis of their memories of the past.

In the following essay, Morris discusses The Homecoming as a comedy of manners with a tragic theme.

In the following essay, Minogue argues that reviewers of The Caretaker focused too much on Pinter's style and ignored the content of the play.

In the following review of Silence and Landscaping, Hughes discusses Pinter's ideas about fear of communication and examines the significance of silence in his plays.

In the following review of Silence and Landscaping, Hughes discusses Pinter's ideas about fear of communication and examines the significance of silence in his plays.

In the following essay, Kunkel explores the grim alienation Pinter's characters represent.

In the following essay, Kunkel explores the grim alienation Pinter's characters represent.

Harold Pinter started off unluckily. He arrived on the London stage at a time when it was no longer fashionable for playwrights merely to exercise their gifts. They had to apply them, more or less explicitly, to social themes…. Pinter has already done his best to lean obligingly in the direction of conventional naturalism and commitment by saying, "If you press me for a definition, I'd say that what goes on in my plays is realistic, but what I'm doing is not realism." It w...

[Pinter's note in the 1980 text of The Hothouse] places The Hothouse between The Birthday Party and The Caretaker. What may appear surprising in this chronological arrangement is the relation between The Birthday Party and the lately produced play. Without the author's guidance spectators and readers would tend to consider The Hothouse as a preparatory exercise for The Birthday Party. It is a comparatively easy Pinter: his characteristic technique is used less economically and discreetly in it...

In the following interview, Pinter discusses his work with Carey Perloff, a director of several of Pinter's plays.

In the following interview, Riddell discusses Pinter's polemical stance on many political issues.

A radio play which uses the qualities of sound and silence to the fullest extent cannot be translated into another medium without damage. If such plays use those attributes of radio which are unique—chiefly its intimacy, flexibility and ability to command not only absolute concentration but also active and continuous participation from the listener—then no visual treatment however fluid or evocative can avoid the problem of being too literal—of lessening both the sensual and the intelle...

If we seek, in twentieth-century criticism, for anything approaching the extent of the detailed verbal analysis of Pinter's plays, we find it only in commentaries on Yeats, Eliot and Christopher Fry. In short, we find it in poetic dramatists in whose language the technical and aesthetic resources of poetry and verse are used to a very high degree. (p. 166) Pinter's language is generally regarded by the intelligent theatregoer and by some perceptive critics as a remarkable evocation of '...

Although Beckett and Pinter have less in common than meets the eye, nevertheless they share a fundamental premise: their characters are raw, vulnerable, dangerously exposed to one another. They speak words carefully, with painful consideration, as though every excess of communication puts their existence at risk. Words are swords to them, but also shields. The characters are ill at ease in company, but alert to language. Hence their utility for the modern theatre-goer, who lives, eats, drinks and breathes e...

In the following essay, Stone argues against Pinter's vocal public support for Kurdish nationalism in Turkey.

In the following essay, Jays laments the neglect of Jewish writing in British theater. Jays comments that Pinter's Jewish background is rarely mentioned in critical discussion of his plays.

In the following review, Bryden praises Pinter's skill as a playwright but wonders about the depth of his concerns, or of his accomplishment.

In the following review, Bryden praises Pinter's skill as a playwright but wonders about the depth of his concerns, or of his accomplishment.

Though Pinter is distinctly a poetic rather than a problem-solving playwright, he is by his own proud admission in large part a traditionalist. Despite his lack of certain kinds of explicit information about his characters and plot, in form Pinter is not as far from the well-made play of Ibsen as many of his fellow absurdists; he is fond of curtain lines and curtains, and he is ultimately concerned with the shape both of words and of his entire dramatic world. "For me everything has to do with shape,...

In the following review, Abbott offers high praise for Pinter's Moonlight, and discusses its central themes of living versus dead and past versus present.

In the following review, Kauffmann applauds the “gentleness” he sees in Silence and Landscape.

In the following review, Kauffmann applauds the “gentleness” he sees in Silence and Landscape.

In the following review of The Life and Works of Harold Pinter, by Michael Billington, Barnwell criticizes the author for providing an overly laudatory biography of Pinter.

In the following review of Three by Harold Pinter, Morley praises A Kind of Alaska, The Collection, and The Lover, asserting that this “Pinter treble of unresolved menace is a remarkable tribute to his unique stagecraft over the last thirty or forty years.”

In the following review of Various Voices, a collection of Pinter's poems and prose, Imlah observes that its principal value is as a companion to Pinter's plays.

In the following review of Various Voices, Scammell asserts that Pinter is England's greatest living playwright.

In the following review, Cusac applauds Various Voices, observing that it provides valuable insight about Pinter and his plays.

In the following review, Gill asserts that Pinter's Ashes to Ashes ultimately does not make sense.

Which way is our leading dramatist going? Is Harold Pinter moving away from the extravagantly 'Pinteresque' situations and language of his earlier style—which he had revived with the re-discovery and exhumation of The Hothouse? or is he developing in the direction of a new, much more subtly searching exploration of his favourite themes of memory, the nature of the self and of reality; a direction in which he had embarked with Betrayal?… [Other Places] gives an affirmative answer ...

In the following review, Sterling asserts that Various Voices provides valuable insight into Pinter's work and is essential reading for scholars and students of British drama. He further observes that Pinter's prose is intelligent, insightful, creative, thought-provoking, and enjoyable to read.

In the following review, Morley comments that Pinter's Betrayal is stylish but ultimately empty.

In the following essay, Greer offers a brief, negative assessment of Pinter's career and reputation as a dramatist.

In the following review, Wassenaar applauds Pinter's stage adaptation of Marcel Proust's novel À la recherche du temps perdu. Wassenaar discusses the themes of snobbery and sexuality in both works.

In the following review, Oliver gives high praise to The Dumb Waiter and The Collection,.

In the following review, Ford praises Landscape as “one of the most resonant of Harold Pinter's shorter pieces.”

In the following review of several radio broadcasts of plays by Pinter, Vestey asserts that Pinter's dramas are deeply unsatisfying.

In the following review, Jensen discusses the theme of the confusion of memory and desire in Pinter's Ashes to Ashes.

I speak carefully when I say that [The Proust Screenplay is] incomparably the best screen adaptation ever made of a great work and that it is in itself a work of genius—minor compared with the source, as Pinter surely would be the first to scornfully insist, but I would insist that this screenplay [of Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu] far surpasses anything conveyed by the term "adaptation" and becomes a re-composition in another art. This is by far the best of his s...

In the following essay, Donoghue strongly objects to the negative vision of life he sees conveyed in Pinter's plays.

In the following essay, Donoghue strongly objects to the negative vision of life he sees conveyed in Pinter's plays.

In the following review, Morley comments that the stage adaptation of Pinter's novel The Dwarfs doesn't really work as a play.

In the following review, Benedictus suggests that The Homecoming is a metaphorical representation of Pinter's relation to playwriting and to his audience.

One approaches "The Proust Screenplay," by Harold Pinter …, determined not to complain that Proust's language has vanished. How could it not, given the foolhardy and fascinating idea of making a movie script of the immense "À la Recherche du Temps Perdu."… Still, one must marvel at how the playwright, a master of the laconic/elliptical/polymorphous-abrupt style of modern stagecraft, has cut this lushest of novels down from two million words to a string...

In the following review, Worsley describes Pinter as an off-beat playwright of considerable promise.

In the following review, Worsley describes Pinter as an off-beat playwright of considerable promise.

In the following review, Kellaway offers praise for Pinter's plays A Kind of Alaska, The Collection, and The Lover.

In the following review, Hewes finds that Silence and Landscape lack dramatic tension and development.

In the following review, Hewes finds that Silence and Landscape lack dramatic tension and development.

In the following review, Rusinko asserts that Collected Poems and Prose demonstrates that Pinter is an accomplished poet, as well as a dramatist.

In the following review, Beaufort praises the mood of “macabre menace” Pinter evokes in a production of The Birthday Party, which he also directed.

In the following review, Alvarez complains that, despite an excellent production, The Caretaker is disappointing because, in it, Pinter repeats what he has “already done better in other plays.”

In the following review, Simon can find nothing of value in The Caretaker.

In the following review, Hewes commends the San Francisco Actor's Workshop for maintaining a roster of quality offerings, and praises its production of The Birthday Party.

In the following essay, Jays offers a brief overview of Pinter's screenplays.

In the following review, Alvarez states that The Room and The Dumb Waiter are about the “impossibility of communication.”

[Harold Pinter, the] obscure, difficult playwright of the early '60s has emerged, two decades later, as our foremost exponent of naturalism. Pinter, we are told, has changed. Hardly: Pinter's style and themes have remained remarkably intact. He is now, as he has almost always been, primarily concerned with power relationships between men, with the ambiguous tension of sexuality, with the unspoken difficulties of an unacknowledged class system. But Pinter does write mystery plays, in both the s...