Moments of Selfhood: Three Plays by Luigi Pirandello

Questions central to the drama of the Italian writer Luigi Pirandello (1867-1936) are the distinctions between Life and Form; what is the Self, if indeed there is one; what is Truth; and what is the artist's responsibility in revealing the Self. This book examines the processes by which Pirandello, dramatic innovator and Nobel Laureate, explored the relativity of truth and the stripping away of masks in three major plays. His characters experience these moments of «costruirsi» as they come face to face with their individual moments of Truth and either disintegrate or become fully realized.