Word: bentley
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...Eric Bentley attacked last night the "prevalent view" that a good playwright creates real characters and asserted that all of drama's greatest characters are "types...
...Types can always be summed up in a few phrases," Bentley explained in his last Charles Eliot Norton Lecture of the Fall Term. A type is a "person whose future is predictable, because he is a creature of habit...
...described as "semi-literate" those who praise playwrights for creating "believable characters." Shakespeare's minor characters, for example, "present only a single quality, or tone," Bentley maintained. His major characters are only "emotional forces...
...word "type," however, does not describe the characters of a good drama adequately, Bentley added. Emphasizing that bad modern dramas often "explain their characters," he remarked that "fundamental traits, in a great drama, may often be misleading...
Drama critic Eric Bentley is Norton Professor for the present year...