The writings of Friedrich Dürrenmatt are liberally scattered with disclaimers, warning all who would approach his works that they are dealing here with a creative writer, not a theoretician; with a theatrical experimenter, not a philosopher…. [However, in his essay 'Vom Sinn der Dichtung in unserer Zeit,' Dürrenmatt reveals that for him art is] a means of helping the ordinary individual, trapped and powerless in a depersonalized society, to comprehend his world, or, perhaps more realistically, at least to come to terms with its incomprehensibility. (p. 133)

Of course it would be a fundamental error to claim that Dürrenmatt's purpose is primarily didactic. He himself … has been at pains to emphasize that their theatrical quality should be the criterion by which his plays are judged…. Yet one cannot ignore the extreme and … paradoxical position into which Dürrenmatt is led by his evident horror of...