Eric Bentley (1916–2020,) in full Eric Russell Bentley, was a British-born American theater critic, playwright, stage director, and translator. He is celebrated for presenting the works of many European playwrights to America.
Born in Bolton, Lancashire, England, Bentley studied at the University of Oxford and earned a PhD from Yale. His Yale doctoral thesis (1941) became the well-received volume A Century of Hero Worship: A Study of the Idea of Heroism in Carlyle and Nietzsche (1944.)
While teaching freshman English at California-Los Angeles, Bentley met the German playwright Bertolt Brecht, who had newly migrated to America after fleeing Nazi Germany. The two became close, and Bentley translated much of Brecht’s work into English and helped establish his career in America.
Bentley was recognized for his original, literate reviews of theatre and his critical works on drama. He wrote Bentley on Brecht (1998,) a combination of literary criticism and personal reflections about Brecht.
Bentley’s celebrated works on theater criticism include The Life of the Drama (1964,) The Playwright as Thinker (1946,) The Theory of the Modern Theatre (1968, 1976,) What Is Theatre? (1968,) and Thinking About the Playwright (1987.) As a playwright, Bentley wrote a dozen plays, principally dramas.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Eric Bentley
Ours is the age of substitutes: instead of language, we have jargon: instead of principles, slogans: and, instead of genuine ideas, bright ideas.
—Eric Bentley
Topics: Society
Fashion, which elevates the bad to the level of the good, subsequently turns its back on bad and good alike.
—Eric Bentley
Topics: Fashion
If one truly has lost hope, one would not be on hand to say so.
—Eric Bentley
Topics: Hope
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