Burkman, Katherine H. The Dramatic World of Harold Pinter: Its Basis in Ritual, University of Ohio Press, 1971.

This study treats Pinter's early plays not as comedies but rather as recreations of ancient fertility myths and rituals.

Dukore, Bernard F. Where Laughter Stops: Pinter's Tragicomedy, University of Missouri Press, 1976.

This brief study argues that Pinter's technique is to move from what is funny to what is unfunny and threatening, even though the source for what was comic remains the same for what has been transmuted into the tragic.

Esslin, Martin. Pinter: A Study of His Plays, expanded edition, W. W. Norton, 1976.

Esslin, who authored The Theatre of the Absurd, approaches Pinter in the fashion of that seminal work, attempting to explain the puzzling aspects of the playwright's work by examining and analyzing, among other things, influences, sources, and techniques underlying "Pinterese." The work includes a useful chronology...