Abstract
This chapter introduces the examination of the grotesque as soliciting audience engagement with vital ethical and political issues in the work of contemporary playwrights. Following a history of the concept, it describes the forms of the grotesque in modern theatre from the German Romantics, Alfred Jarry, Luigi Pirandello, and the absurdists up to the present day. It argues that the effects of the grotesque are best measured on the broad scale between Wolfgang Kayser’s understanding of the grotesque as bleak and terrifying and Mikhail Bakhtin’s emphasis on liberation and regeneration; at the same time, the meaning of the grotesque is always determined in a particular interpretative context. The final section introduces the playwrights discussed in the book—Philip Ridley, Mark O’Rowe, Enda Walsh, Suzan-Lori Parks, and Tim Crouch.
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Pilný, O. (2016). Introduction: The Grotesque and Contemporary Drama. In: The Grotesque in Contemporary Anglophone Drama. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51318-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51318-2_1
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