Miller, Arthur (Vol. 26) | John Gassner
JOHN GASSNER
[Arthur Miller's 'Death of a Salesman'] is not quite the masterpiece of dramatic literature that the enthusiasts would have us believe. It is well written but is not sustained by incandescent or memorable language except in two or three short passages. Moreover, its hero, the desperate salesman Willy Loman, is too much the loud-mouthed dolt and emotional babe-in-the-woods to wear all the trappings of high tragedy with which he has been invested. It is, indeed, a feature of the play's rather trite orientation that Willy, whose ideals are so banal and whose strivings are so commonplace, is sent to his death in a catafalque as if he were worthy of [Ludwig van] Beethoven's Eroica symphony. For writers of the stamp of Molière and [George Bernard] Shaw, Willy would have been an object of satirical penetration rather than mournful tenderness and lachrymose elegy. By contrast with even contemporary dramatists of a fine grain like [Eugene O'Neill, Tennessee...
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