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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 November 2021
Pirandello's masterful dramatic technique stands in sharp contrast to the wariness of his thought and the relativism of the human truths he presents. Scepticism usually begets a certain amount of detachment toward human weaknesses. By and by weariness, disillusion, and contempt build a wall between the thinker and life. But human nature follows mysterious ways and the most cynical of men may feel an overwhelming desire to confide in other men and to pour out his disillusions, his defeats, and his philosophical conclusions.
This essay has been excerpted from M. Weiss's Le Theatre de Luigi Pirandello (Paris: Librairie 73, 1964). The original monograph is 104 pages long.—Editor's Note
1 One should mention the possibility that Pirandello was influenced not by Bergson but by the brilliant Italian critic A. Tilgher. In an article published in 1927 Silvio d'Amico declared that Pirandello had never mentioned the conflict between life and form until 1924. Analyzing this article, Alfred Morier notes that Pirandello relied on another theory: the theory of the “mirror, that is, the disappointment felt by man when he suddenly sees his real face reflected in the mirror of his conscience.” The Life-Form conflict would then be an idea borrowed from Tilgher and used by Pirandello in a later work, Diana and the Tuda.
2 My own translation.—Translator's note.