Eugene O’Neill was the leading playwright in America in the first half of the 20th century. In his entire artistic career, He completed nearly 50 plays, which deal with a wide variety of subjects, concerning issues in religion, society, family and humanity. As a pioneer of modern American theatre, he made a great contribution to American drama, American culture and American ideas. The critical studies of Eugene O’Neill have long since focused in his expressionistic techniques, his tragic tensions, his tragic consciousness, and his philosophy. In fact, he possesses abundant emotional life experience, acute social observation and high artistic expressive force. He has been in pursuit of presenting a unique poetic style. Therefore, Eugene O’Neill’s plays are poetic, well rounded, and full of emotion and true beauty.
Most of O’Neill’s plays have connections to his life and his writing styles are also influenced by his experience and social observation. O’Neill always said that he never had any literary ambition until he was grown, and generally ascribed the great turning point of his life—his decision to became a writer—to a period of ill-heath. At different times he told interviewers: “I just drifted along till I was twenty-four and the I got a jolt and sat up and took notice. Retribution overtook me and I went down with T.B. It gave me time to think about myself and what I was doing—or, rather, wasn’t doing. I got busy writing one-act plays… If I hadn’t had an attack of tuberculosis, if I hadn’t been forced to look at myself, while I was in the sanatorium, harder than I had ever done before, I might never have become a playwright” (Sheafer, 72). Almost as far as back as O’Neill could remember he had always wanted to be a writer, n...
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Robert Frost is often known as one of the greatest American poets of all time. Although he is sometimes remembered as hateful and mean spirited, his life was filled with highs and lows. These differentiating periods are represented throughout his poetry. Frost once said that “A poem begins in delight, and ends in wisdom.” As can be seen, this quote not only reflected his poetry, but his life. Though many years of his life were troubled by misfortune, Frost always seemed to persevere. Robert Frost was a talented, thoughtful poet whose life was filled with complexity and tragedy (brainyquote.com).
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Many playwrights drew from outside influences to compose their works. They would look the era they were living in, their personal lives, childhood experiences, and even ancient texts to acquire inspiration for their works and famous playwright, Eugene O’Neill, is no exception. Writing through two world wars, a great depression, and boom of the motion-picture industry, O’Neill certainly had much inspiration to choose from. Although not becoming nationally recognized until after his father’s death in 1920, O’Neill still managed to produce fifty completed works. Using influences from the 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, Eugene O’Neill demonstrated how he used the era he was living in to help compose his works.
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Edward Albee burst onto the American theatrical scene in the late 1950s with a variety of plays that detailed the agonies and disillusionment of that decade and the transition from the calm Eisenhower to the turbulent 1960s. Albee became a serious dramatist dealing with serious but always relevant themes, primarily having to do with the predicament of humanity in a society with moral decay, as well as the conflict between reality and illusion. His work is considered to be unique, uncompromising, controversial, elliptical, and provocative.
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I decided to write on my essay on Eugene O’ Neill because he has contributed so much to the field of theatre. Eugene O'Neill's greatest plays, was presented by the National Theatre in 2003 celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the playwright's death. A reworking of the “Oresteia” trilogy by Aeschylus and the Electra tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides, O’Neill’s epic American tragedy of hatred, passion, jealousy and greed is set in New England after the Civil War. Using Freud’s theories, as O’Neill had done earlier in “Strange Interlude,” he now views classical drama (as had Freud) as a rich field for exploration of character motivation.
Theater of the Absurd applies to a group of plays with a certain set of characteristics. These characteristics convey a sense of bewilderment, anxiety, and wonder in the face of an unexplainable feeling. These plays all have unusual actions and are missing a key element that would clearly define other pieces of literature. Language and actions differ from the usual and sometimes cannot be explained in the Theater of the Absurd. In the works of Albee and Ionesco language, behavior, and structure are abnormal if compared to other plays. Language is a key factor that is presented as a weak form of communication throughout “The Future is in Eggs,” “The Zoo Story,” “The American Dream,” and “The Leader.”
Before Breakfast is a short gloomy play by Eugene O'Neill. Eugene O'Neill was born in 1888 in New York City. He is the only American dramatist to ever win the Nobel Prize for literature. Before Breakfast is set in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, in a small one room flat on Christopher Street. The flat consists of a kitchen and dinning area. There are only two characters in this drama. Mrs. Roland who is the only speaking character and her husband Alfred. Alfred's hand is seen once in the play, but not much else. This is symbolic of an absentee husband or a non-existent marriage. Although, Alfred is not seen, he contributes a great deal to the conflict. With only Mrs. Rowland on stage, O'Neill allows the plot to revolve around her.