|
|
Eugene O'neill's America: Desire Under DemocracyStock informationGeneral Fields
Special Fields
DescriptionIn the face of seemingly relentless American optimism, Eugene O'Neill's plays reveal an America many would like to ignore, a place of seething resentments, aching desires, and family tragedy, where failure and disappointment are the norm and the American dream a chimera. Though derided by critics during his lifetime, his works resonated with audiences, won him the Nobel Prize and four Pulitzers, and continue to grip theatergoers today. Now noted historian John Patrick Diggins offers a masterly biography that both traces O'Neill's tumultuous life and explains the forceful ideas that form the heart of his unflinching works. Diggins paints a richly detailed portrait of the playwright's life, from his Irish roots and his early years at sea to his relationships with his troubled mother and brother. Here, we see O'Neill as a young Greenwich Village radical, a ravenous autodidact who attempted to understand the disjunction between the sunny public face of American life and the rage that he knew was simmering beneath. According to Diggins, O'Neill mined this disjunction like no other American writer. Reviews"This will be an essential book for all who seek to know the political dimensions of O'Neill's work and view of the world." - Stephen A. Black, author of Eugene O'Neill: Beyond Mourning and Tragedy "Sixty years ago Eric Bentley wrote a seminal book on 'the playwright as thinker.' John Patrick Diggins discusses Eugene O'Neill in precisely this light - as a dramatist who reflected deeply on American history in terms of the most serious ethical and political concerns. O'Neill is usually seen today as a haunted figure best remembered for his late, great autobiographical plays, but Diggins reminds us of other profound dimensions of his work, his lifelong obsession with national as well as personal origins." - Morris Dickstein, author of Gates of Eden and A Mirror in the Roadway" Author descriptionJohn Patrick Diggins is Distinguished Professor in the PhD Program at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of several books, including, most recently, Ronald Reagan: Fate, Freedom, and the Meaning of History. |