Criticism > Drama Criticism > Pirandello, Luigi - Major Works

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MAJOR WORKS

Although Pirandello's first dramas were not staged until he was forty-three years of age, by the time of his death he had written over forty plays. In his most famous work, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Pirandello described the plight of six characters who interrupt the rehearsal of another Pirandello play to demand that their stories be acted out. His acknowledgment of the stage as the location of a theatrical performance—a place where life is only simulated—startled audiences and critics alike and heralded the self-conscious use of the theater that is a hallmark of modernist drama. Pirandello followed the success of Six Characters with Henry IV, which many critics consider his greatest work. Written four years after he had his wife committed, Henry IV is an expression of the concern with madness that had been prevalent in Pirandello's personal life and in his art. The play depicts a man who, as the result of an...

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1. Introduction
2. Biographical Information
3. Major Works
4. Critical Reception
5. Principal Works
6. Author Commentary
7. Overviews And General Studies
8. Six Characters In Search Of An Author
9. Critical Commentary
10. Henry Iv
11. Further Reading
12. Copyright

1. Drama