The Theater Essays of Arthur Miller

These collected essays, first published in such periodicals as The New York Times, The New York Herald Tribune, or Atlantic Monthly, trace the origins of modern drama in Greek tragedy and comedy. At least four of them should be required reading in any introductory course in British and American literature: The Salesman Has A Birthday; Tragedy And The Common Man; The Nature Of Tragedy; and The Family In Modern Drama. The last of these contains a memorable phrase that furnished the title of the selection of the late U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl's essays, At Home In The World. One brief quotation from Tragedy And The Common Man that seems especially relevant to the present era will suffice: "The Greeks could probe the very heavenly origin of their ways and return to confirm the rightness of laws."

This book is an incredible trip through out Miller's ideas. The essays on the book are very well selected and disposed in a good way for the readers to understand what Arthur Miller is all about. There's no better way to know somebody other than this persons' own words. And this is what's so special about this book. We get to know Arthur Miller through his own special words. The first essay, "Tragedy and the Common Man" is already classical for its contents. Most of the books about Arthur Miller talk about it, but this very book happens to be the only way for us to actually read the whole text. Summing up: if you're willing to go to the bootom of this very important writer, this is the book you must choose.