Abstract
"That word! Those damn words and that word Pinteresque particularly," Harold Pinter retorted in his often-reprinted Paris Review interview with Lawrence M. Bensky in 1966. "I don't know what they're bloody well talking about." Increasingly since then, the continued development of Pinter's career has foiled - and to some extent silenced - those critics determined to pin down and classify the common denominator of his achievement. This special issue of Modern Drama, at the peril of adding to the long list of twenty-odd books and uncounted articles on Harold Pinter, is devoted entirely to critical studies of his work. It attempts to bring together a provocative sampling of current scholarship which, no longer comfortable with simplifications like "Pinteresque," tries to explore and debate the complexities and techniques of Pinter's dramaturgy.