Critical Reception of Arthur Miller

Traces the critical rise and fall-and rise-of the author of Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, one of the greatest American playwrights.Since his death in 2005, Arthur Miller has begun to receive consideration as the "Shakespeare" of American theater, a comparison based on his impact, reputation, and productivity. He is rated among the most influential American dramatists to date. But this has not always been the case. Despite early success and lionization in the late 1940s and early 1950s, by the 1970s he had virtually disappeared in his native land, despite the fact he was continuously producing new works. Much of this was due to theater reviewers' and scholarly critics' concerns about Miller's patriotism, his private life (especially his relationship with Marilyn Monroe), and his theatrical aesthetics. Despite the innovative construction of Miller's Death of a Salesman, theater scholar Robert Brustein called for the playwright to be rejected as an old-fashioned realist with a simplistic moral bent, and others concurred. Miller's new plays languished-especially in the United States. However, by the late 1980s, initially through the work of scholars abroad but then also at home,alongside increasingly innovative productions of his work, a revival of Miller's reputation began. This book explores the connections between literary and theatrical criticism and Miller's career and reputation, and traces how he has become a playwright of world renown.