It has been no secret for nearly two decades that Eric Bentley is one of America's most incisive writers on the theater. His engagement to the theater, moreover, has been practical as well as critical, passionate as well as judicial. There is hardly an advance in modern drama that he has not illuminated and promoted, hardly a fault that he has not detected and exposed. It follows that no one is better qualified to take the broadest possible view of the drama in our times; no one is more entitled to assume the roles of philosopher, esthetician and historian in addition to that of critic. The result is a work of sagacious maturity, and the publisher's blurb is entirely correct in referring to ["The Life of the Drama"] as a major achievement.

Mr. Bentley actually endeavors to carry out the intention described in his title; he discourses on...