Харолд Пинтер и политичка употреба апсурда

The paper is a contribution to the current debate concerning the politics of Harold Pinter’s drama. The controversy arose due to the overtly political character of Pinter’s plays since the late eighties, and revolves round the question of whether these late plays and sketches embody a fresh departure, as opposed to his earlier, more metaphorical explorations of the human condition, or whether, on the contrary, Pinter’s entire dramatic oeuvre has been political through and through from the very start. The latter view is supported in the paper, the author arguing that, whether metaphysical or historical in origin, the meaninglessness of life dramatized in the Theater of the Absurd, where Pinter’s early work was placed by Martin Esslin, need not imply the playwright’s own consent to it, nor preclude a political interpretation.