Eugene ONeills Century: Centennial Views on Americas Foremost Tragic Dramatist (Contributions in Drama and Theatre Studies)

This collection commemorating the centennial of American playwright Eugene ONeills birth presents a spectrum of critical views unusual for its variety and breadth of scholarship. Contributors from such diverse fields as Psychology, English Literature, Germanic Studies, Philosophy, the Classics, and Theatre Arts offer fresh perspectives on and penetrating interpretations of Americas one indisputable world dramatist. Following editor Richard F. Moorton, Jr.s introduction, which considers critical problems in ONeill scholarship, the work is organized into three sections devoted to the nature of ONeills dramaturgy, the cultural and autobiographical sources for his art, and the challenges of bringing that art to the stage. The essays range encompasses literary criticism of ONeill, psychoanalytic and feminist interpretations of the plays, ONeill in translation, and a look at the playwright from an actors perspective. An essay on ONeill and film contains an invaluable appendix of television adaptations of the playwrights work. Eugene ONeills Century opens with Moortons vigorous defense of ONeills tragedy and locates its genius in the violation of intimate relationships, especially the family, a notion crucial to Aristotles definition of tragedy. The six essays in the collections first section, ONeills Tragic Art, analyze ONeills drama on its own terms. Found here are a new theory of ONeills conception of drama; a Russian Formalist approach to Long Days Journey into Night; an analysis of the plays verbal violence; a feminist psychoanalysis of Mourning Becomes Electra; a study of film adaptations of the plays; and a look at ONeill in translation. The five essays of section two, Art and Life: Wellsprings of Genius, locate the influences that helped to shape the artists work: both in his own life and in other works of art such as Aeschylus Eumenides. Views of ONeills work from the perspective of the living theatre compose section three, ONeill Onstage, in which the playwrights stage directions for the actor are examined in terms of the nature of his art; and the common pursuit of ONeill scholars and theatrical practitioners is explored. Readers of ONeill will find this presentation indispensable. It should be on the shelves of both university and public libraries.

Author: Richard Moorton

Language: English

Binding: Hardcover

Pages: 264

Publisher: Praeger

Publication Date: 1991-04-30