A secondary objective of the study will be to identify common trends in the theatre of the absurd outside the works of Harold Pinter, and to place Pinter's works in the context of the larger theatrical movement. An examination of other playwrights associated with the theatre of the absurd, as well as scholarship and criticism concerning this genre of theatre, will be used to create and explore this context within the study. Pinter's influence on the theatre of the absurd as well as the influence that the larger movement had on Pinter will also be examined.

Methodology

The study will be composed of five chapters, beginning with a discussion of the elements of Aristotelian drama. Titled, "Introduction: Aristotelian Theatre," this chapter will begin with a discussion of the elements of theatre as described in Aristotle's Poetics, followed by a cursory examination of the dramatic and theatrical conventions this work led to over the course of Western theatre's development. The second chapter, "Dramatic Conventions and Inconsistencies in Pinter's Major Plays" will examine how the Aristotelian elements appear in and are violated by Pinter in his major works by identifying specific elements in the plays.

The third chapter, "Pinter and the Theatre of the Absurd," will situate the identified conventions and violations of Pinter's work in the larger context of the theatre of the absurd genre/movement. This will include an examination of other major playwrights of the movement, including Beckett, Ionesco, and Albee, as well as critics and scholars of the movement. This will lead into the fourth chapter, "Conventions of the Theatre of the Absurd," which will examine the genre and its established practices as a whole....

The fifth chapter will conclude the study, recapping major points and synthesizing the preceding chapters in conclusion drawn regarding the progression of Western theatre through the theatre of the absurd.
Working Bibliography

Albee, Edward. Three Plays. New York: Coward McCann, 1960.

Albee, Edward. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? New York: Penguin, 2005.

Aristotle. Poetics. trans. Malcolm Heath. New York: Penguin, 1997.

Brustein, Robert. "The Absurd and the Ridiculous." New Republic, Vol. 146, Issue 12, p30-31.

Cohn, Ruby. "The World of Harold Pinter." The Tulane Drama Review, Vol. 6, No. 3, pp. 55-68.

Esslin, Martin. "Mrozek, Beckett, and the Theatre of the Absurd. " New Theatre Quarterly, Vol. 10, Issue 40, pp. 377-83.

Esslin, Martin. The Theatre of the Absurd. New York: Pelican, 1987.

Ionesco, Eugene. Rhinoceros and Other Plays. New York: Grove Press, 2002.

Lieberman, Andrienne. "The Well-Made Play and the Theatre of the Absurd: A Study in Attitude Change." Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 39, Issue 1, pp. 85-91.

Pinter, Harold. Complete Works Vol. 1. New York: Grove Press, 1994.

Pinter, Harold. Complete Works Vol. 2. New York: Grove Press, 1994.

Pinter, Harold. Complete Works Vol. 3. New York: Grove Press, 1994.

Rayner, Alice. "Harold Pinter: Narrative and Presence." Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4, pp. 482-97.

Schchner, Richard. "Puzzling Pinter." The Tulane Drama Review, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Winter, 1966), pp. 176-84.

Styan, J.L. Modern Drama in Theory and Practice 2: Symbolism, Surrealism, and Absurdism. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981.