'Look for the truth and tell it': politics and Harold Pinter

For more than two decades, Pinter had been most passionately engaged with world politics as a citizen; as an artist he has often sought to reflect this political engagement through his representation of the relationship between an oppressive totalitarian state and the dissenting individual. In interviews he claims that he was always a ‘political playwright’. Yet it is not Pinter’s overt political plays which interest me here. This thesis seeks to explore how Pinter was ‘political’ throughout his career, both in the plays that seem to separate art from politics, and the political activism he was engaged in right up until his death. Firstly, I will focus on the politics of personal relationships, relationships that are consumed with a battle for power between man and woman. Secondly, I will examine his symbolic response to world politics using such relationships as he had become famous for. Thirdly, I will look at his political writings, his poetry, journalism and public speeches which see his increasingly public role as political activist.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

m_ph

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

m_ph

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Birmingham

Year dc:date.issued

2009

Author dc:creator

• Baldwin, Victoria Marie

• PN2000 Dramatic representation. The Theater