Death of a Playwright

The death of the playwright Arthur Miller, perhaps the most influential dramatist of the twentieth century, follows soon of the heels of the passing of Susan Sontag and Jacques Derrida. The passing of this trio of brilliant intellects marks the waning influence of the radicals who came to prominence in the Cold War atmosphere of the late 1950s and '60s; who will take over their mantle, as the voices of the next generation in this new war? David Hare's Stuff Happens, though provocative, would never claim to have been as bitingly political in such a tragically recognisable domestic environment as Death of a Salesman. And what critics around today can make as humane and natural a response to drama, without getting tied up in loops of theory, as Miller did in the winding prose of his non-fictional work?

Labels: Arthur Miller, Literature