Eugène Ionesco Criticism
Renowned for his profound impact on modern drama, Eugène Ionesco is a key figure in the "Theater of the Absurd," often compared to Samuel Beckett. His works delve into existential themes, exploring alienation, communication breakdown, and societal destructiveness. Ionesco's journey from Romania to France significantly influenced his artistic perspective, as his estrangement from his native language intensified his sensitivity to the inadequacies of communication—a theme prevalent in his early plays like The Bald Soprano, where dialogues break down into nonsensical sounds, as noted by John Lahr.
Ionesco's accidental entry into theater was initially met with hostility, yet he quickly became a pivotal voice, blending tragedy and comedy with unique theatrical style. Scholars such as J.K. Newberry and Leonard C. Pronko have discussed his exploration of anti-spiritual forces and aversion to literary classification, while Edward Albee praises his influence on the exploration of freedom and identity in drama.
In plays like Rhinocéros, Ionesco presents themes of conformity and individuality. G. Richard Danner interprets Rhinocéros as a critique of society's herd mentality and a call to preserve human values. His later works, featuring recurring characters like Bérenger, delve into mortality and existence, reflecting a shift towards more introspective themes.
Critics such as George G. Strem highlight Ionesco's poetical approach, which juxtaposes irrational elements with existential insights, inviting audiences to marvel at human existence amidst chaos. His plays often transform the mundane into the grotesque, using surrealism to critique social systems. This technique is evident in works like The Killer, discussed by Barry N. Schwartz, and Massacre Games, as analyzed by Sister Corona Sharp.
Ionesco's legacy as a playwright extends beyond drama, encompassing short stories, a novel, and a screenplay, establishing him as a major literary figure of the 20th century. His works challenge traditional theater by embracing absurdity to deliver profound critiques of the human condition, a theme that Peter Thomson and Richard Schechner both recognize as pivotal in his enduring influence on modern drama.
Contents
- Principal Works
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Ionesco, Eugène (Vol. 15)
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Golgotha Again?
(summary)
In the following essay, Barry N. Schwartz explores Ionesco's play The Killer, arguing that it critiques the dehumanization inherent in social systems and language manipulation, emphasizing the necessity of reclaiming authentic language to confront the human condition and questioning man's ability to control his destiny amidst ideological distortions.
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The Dance of Death in Modern Drama: Auden, Dürrenmatt and Ionesco
(summary)
In the following essay, Sister Corona Sharp explores Eugène Ionesco's adaptation of the medieval Dance of Death theme in his play Massacre Games, highlighting how he combines historical allegory, surrealism, and satire to present death as a dehumanized and comic spectacle, thus stripping it of traditional religious and sentimental elements.
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The Absurd Professor in the Theater of the Absurd
(summary)
In the following essay, Alexander Fischler argues that Eugène Ionesco's use of the professor figure in plays like La Leçon illustrates the absurdity of human existence through a blend of archetype and everyday reality, transforming traditional dramaturgical roles to reveal themes of impotence and the cyclical nature of life and death.
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Bérenger's Dubious Defense of Humanity in 'Rhinocéros'
(summary)
In the following essay, G. Richard Danner challenges the widely-held interpretation of Eugène Ionesco's Rhinocéros as an allegory, arguing instead that the play presents a complex, non-dualistic examination of humanity and individualism, where traditional human values and anti-conformist stances are questioned and potentially undermined.
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Golgotha Again?
(summary)
- Ionesco, Eugène (Vol. 6)
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Obituaries And Tributes
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Edward Albee Salutes a Great Vaudevillian
(summary)
A three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Albee is an American playwright, scriptwriter, poet, and short story writer. In the following tribute, he remarks on how Ionesco influenced his approach to drama.
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Eugène Ionesco
(summary)
In the following tribute, he surveys the themes and techniques of Ionesco's works.
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Obituaries And Tributes
(summary)
In the following obituary, the critic provides an overview of Eugène Ionesco's life and works, highlighting his innovative "anti-plays" that utilized surrealism and humor to satirize modern society, influence a generation of playwrights, and establish him as a key figure in the Theater of the Absurd despite his own preference for the label "Theater of Derision."
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Edward Albee Salutes a Great Vaudevillian
(summary)
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Ionesco, Eugène (Vol. 11)
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Horst S. Daemmrich
(summary)
In the following essay, Horst S. Daemmrich explores how Eugène Ionesco's play Rhinocéros uses the inversion of archetypal motifs to depict society's spiritual decline and the isolation of individuals, highlighting the protagonist Bérenger's tragic yet ennobled isolation in his commitment to human values.
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Eugène Ionesco's Rhinoceroses: Their Romanian Origins and Western Fortunes
(summary)
In the following essay, Dorothy Knowles examines the obsessional themes in Ionesco's work, particularly Rhinocéros, arguing that it critiques any ideology that dehumanizes individuals, while also highlighting Ionesco's apolitical stance and the tension between personal isolation and societal pressures.
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Edmund White
(summary)
In the following essay, Edmund White argues that Eugène Ionesco's work, previously perceived as trivial or satirical critiques of bourgeois life, should be reevaluated as a complex exploration of existential fear, particularly the fear of death, as exemplified by his novel "The Hermit" and other works.
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Ionesco and the Comedy of the Absurd
(summary)
In the following essay, Charles I. Glicksberg argues that Eugène Ionesco's plays, such as The Bald Soprano and Exit the King, reflect the philosophy of the Absurd by illustrating the futility of life and the inevitability of death, combining humor with existential dread to explore humanity's struggle against meaninglessness.
- Judith D. Suther
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Horst S. Daemmrich
(summary)
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Reviews Of Ionesco's Recent Works
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Intuitions and Subversions
(summary)
Nemoianu comments on Ionesco's concerns and literary method in Non, noting that Ionesco's mature work was a toning-down of his earlier radicalism, and highlighting his paradoxical yet brilliant critique of Romania's modernist writers.
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Non
(summary)
Dorian is a Romanian-born novelist, poet, and short story writer who now lives in the United States. In the following review, she remarks favorably on Non, a mélange of literary criticism, texts on Romanian literature and culture, and philosophic and existential notes, which is a contribution to an inquiry into creativity, observing the metamorphoses that a writer's themes and motifs undergo with time and in relation to the circumstances of his life.
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Le misérable
(summary)
In the following review, he offers a mixed assessment of Ionesco's attack on Victor Hugo in Hugoliad.
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A Pair of Despairers
(summary)
Weightman is an English educator and critic. In the following excerpt, he presents a mixed assessment of La quête intermittente.
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La quête intermittente
(summary)
Below, she favorably assesses La quête intermittente, which is a moving love letter to the guardians of his life, the two women without whose watchful love he feels he would not remain alive.
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Honours for a Mad Baby
(summary)
In the following review of Théâtre complet, an edition of Ionesco's plays edited by Emmanuel Jacquart, Sheringham surveys the themes of Ionesco's works.
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Intuitions and Subversions
(summary)
- Ionesco, Eugene (Vol. 1)
- Ionesco, Eugene (Vol. 4)
- Ionesco, Eugène (Vol. 9)
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Ionesco, Eugène
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Criticism: Overviews And General Studies
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The Anti-Spiritual Victory in the Theater of Ionesco
(summary)
In the following essay, Pronko argues that in Ionesco’s theater impersonal, anti-spiritual forces, symbolized in physical objects, dominate and conquer humankind, and that dead things are victorious over that which is alive.
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The Theater of Ionesco: A Union of Form and Substance
(summary)
In the following essay, Dukore analyzes The Bald Soprano and The Lesson to show that, contrary to Ionesco’s critics, his plays are not formless or meaningless, and explains that while his works are unorthodox and not concerned with psychological realism or political ideology, in Ionesco’s drama form is a direct outgrowth of subject matter.
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Ritual and Poetry in Eugène Ionesco’s Theatre
(summary)
In the following essay, Strem asserts that Ionesco creates a personal, poetical theater by using his inner voices rather than his rational faculties to produce his work, and says that by bringing the ritual of daily life onto his stage the playwright returns to the origins of dramatic expression.
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Ionesco
(summary)
In the following essay, Sontag notes that Ionesco’s early work, in which he discovers and uses theatrically the poetry of clichés and language-as-thing, is interesting and original. However, she finds his later work infused with a crude, simplistic negativity that is extracted from his earlier artistic discovery, and considers his attitudes a “type of misanthropy covered over with fashionable clichés of cultural diagnosis.”
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Games and Plays: An Approach to Ionesco
(summary)
In the following essay, Thomson argues against critics who appraise Ionesco in terms of his plays’ meaning, and calls for a reassertion of interest in the playwright’s work based on his “manner” rather than his “matter.” He goes on to discuss the use of games as they operate in Ionesco’s absurd world.
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Eugène Ionesco and the Dialectic of Space
(summary)
In the following essay, Witt discusses the polar states such as evanescence and heaviness, lightness and darkness, open space and restriction, that are evident in Ionesco’s plays; notes his use of the arrangement of spatial images; and asserts that Ionesco’s characters are hemmed in, lonely creatures longing for liberation.
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Escape and Fulfillment in the Theatre of Eugène Ionesco
(summary)
In the following essay, Craddock argues that a major concern in Ionesco’s work is the breaking out of confining social structures and awakening of the individual to the full potentialities of existence. According to Ionesco this can be done through exercising the imagination and creativity, those innate capacities that are best developed in solitude, which is where humans find their true selves.
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The Evolution of the Dramatic Technique of Eugène Ionesco
(summary)
In the following essay, Newberry examines the development of Ionesco’s dramatic technique, especially in La Cantatrice Chauve, Les Chaises, and Le Roi se meurt, all of which, the critic considers, share a common element: “the indivisible mixture of tragedy and comedy.”
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Ionesco: Paroxysm and Proliferation
(summary)
In the following essay, Roberts explores the intensification of plot, incongruity, and parodistic fantasy that are characteristic of Ionesco’s plays, and asserts that his dramas display “the insight of a veritable master of the irrational.”
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Ionesco’s Later Plays: Experiments in Dramatic Form
(summary)
In the following essay, Brée studies three Ionesco plays from the 1960s, A Stroll in the Air, Exit the King, and Hunger and Thirst, in relation to his essays of the same period, and argues that the dramas constitute an effort on the part of the playwright to communicate, via the state, a view of life as “provisional, sincere, problematic, yet positive.”
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Human/Non-human Relationships in Ionesco’s Theatre: Conflict and Collaboration
(summary)
In the following essay, Lane examines the role of décor in Ionesco’s plays, asserting that the external surroundings interact with other 'characters' on stage in a wide range of relationships, for example as antagonists and collaborators.
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Irony in Ionesco
(summary)
In the following essay, Retford explores four categories of irony in The Lesson, The Bald Soprano, The Killer, and Victims of Duty, and asserts that Ionesco uses irony to reflect a world in flux and as a statement of his metaphysical sentiments that life is both tragic and comic.
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Scenic Metaphors: A Study of Ionesco’s Geometrical Vision of Human Relationships in the Bérenger Plays
(summary)
In the following essay, Tener treats the use of décor and other visual and aural theatrical metaphors as the dramatic expression of internal and external forces that surround the protagonist in Ionesco’s Bérenger plays.
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Ionescoland
(summary)
In the following essay, an earlier version of which appeared in her volume, Ionesco: A Collection of Critical Essays published by Prentice Hall in 1973, Lamont explores the bizarre world of Ionesco’s dramas, where the protagonists are in search of perfection as they live in dreariness; where objects seem to be endowed with independent existence; where a feeling of heaviness hangs over people; where relief from drudgery is usually fleeting; where the absurdities of existence are expressed in a dislocated language of clichés; and which looks familiar but is disturbingly other and leaves visitors feeling stimulated and estranged.
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Ionesco and Tradition
(summary)
In the following essay, Holland argues that Ionesco, the radical innovator, restored Tradition to theater with his discovery of the inherent theatricality of language, as he moved away from the defeatist and fatalist attitudes of other modernists and brought theater back to the stage in the form of original work.
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The Anti-Spiritual Victory in the Theater of Ionesco
(summary)
- Further Reading
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Criticism: Overviews And General Studies