The New Criterion
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FeaturesNovember 2000 Reticence or insincerity, Rattigan or Pinter On the work of Terrence Rattigan and Harold Pinter.
History is a seamless robe, of course, but there are nevertheless discernible
tears in its fabric. One of these occurred in the 1950s, in the small world
of the British theater.
No doubt unimportant in itself, this
quasi-revolution heralded, and perhaps even contributed to, a profound change
in our culture.
The year in which the change started was 1956: the year, not coincidentally, of the Suez crisis, when it was unmistakably clear as never before that Britain, after two centuries of world influence, was now reduced to the status of a third-rate power, a kind of larger Belgium, which could disappear from the face of the earth without anyone beyond its shores noticing that anything very much had happened. Such abrupt losses of status are apt to result in a reduction of cultural self-confidence, both individually and collectively, as well as in a change of sensibility amounting to a gestalt switch. What previously appeared ... This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchaseSubscribe to TNC (Print and Online editions) Subscribe to TNC (Online only) This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 19 November 2000, on page 12 Copyright © 2012 The New Criterion | www.newcriterion.com http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/rattiganpinter-dalrymple-2306
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