Maurice Maeterlinck Princess Malena Warsaw 1900 first edition Wladyslaw Okręt Publishing House Translated by: Kazimierz Sterling 167s. o. contemporary p. bdb, stamps For. ca: 16x11 cm "Almost at the same time Maeterlinck made his debut as a playwright; the work Princess Malena (1889, Polish edition 1900) gave rise to symbolist theater; the vestigial dialogue, full of unfinished thoughts and insinuations, the passivity of barely defined characters and the static nature of the action make the play one of the first examples of modern anti-theater; the mystery, the lack of literalism, the economy of verbal means, the use of silence as one of the main mood elements, the themes of death and human loneliness distinguish the so-called first theater." |