Language in Modern French Theater

FAIN: FT-12548-75

Dina M. Scherzer
University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TX 78712-0100)

To do research on languages in the modern French theater, especially on the language of such playwrights as Beckett, Benet, and Ionesco. Esslin notes that the Theater of the Absurd tends toward a radical devaluation of language. It is true that language in the plays of Beckett and Ionesco, for example, is very often undermined as a tool of communication. Research will focus on the precise and particular devices that are put to use in order to linguistically animate these empty plots.