Life Is a Play: Identity, Persona, and Improvisation in Luigi Pirandello

Stanford Introductory Seminar. Preference to freshmen. For Pirandello (1867-1936; Nobel Prize, 1934), to suddenly realize your entire life has been a performance is a moment of utmost horror, comedy, and opportunity for self-awareness. In a quintessentially modern fashion, he claims that the performance cannot be stopped, that authenticity is a mirage, and that learning to laugh at oneself is the only liberation. Materials include Pirandello's existential "theater within the theater," his novels, and their film adaptations, which we will study in their cultural context.