安徽三联学院外语学院美国文学课件Chapter 18 ONeill and Tennessee Williams.ppt

Eugene O‘Neill and Tennessee Williams Main Content American Drama Eugene O’Neill Tennessee Williams I. American Drama Ye Bare and Ye Cub (1665) by William Darby and other two author-performers. The Contrast by Royall Tyler(1757-1826), the first American comedy and first played in New York City in 1787. A. Beginning B. Drama in the 19th Century Western expansion (1814 ～ 1824 ) She Would Be a Solider (1819) by Mordecai Noah The Plains of Chippewa (1819) by James Nelson Barker. Poetic plays were very popular in the first half of the 19th century. Move in the direction of realism and domestic melodrama. C. Drama in the 20th Century 1920s: Little Theatre Movement began after 1912, Washington Square Players, Provincetown Players （New York City, Greenage Village）. They are freed from the conventional theatre and can be as experimental as they like. 1930s: Eugene O’Neil, Clifford Odets Post-war: second climax of American drama, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller 1960s: Theatre of the Absurd, Edward Albee II. Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) Introduction Literary Career Characteristics Comment Masterpieces (?) Introduction Eugene (Gladstone) ONeill was born in a Broadway hotel room in New York City on October 16, 1888. ONeill won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1936, and Pulitzer Prizes for four of his plays: Beyond the Horizon (1920); Anna Christie (1922); Strange Interlude (1928); and Long Days Journey Into Night (1957). He is regarded as Americas premier playwright. (Ⅱ) Literary Career A variety of one-act plays describing the way an individual willfully connives at his or her own doom. 1913～1914: wrote nine one-act plays. 1914～1915: attended George Pierce Baker’s “47 Workshop” at Harvard University. 1916～1917: wrote six more one-act plays. 1918: four one-act plays. 1920: his first full-length play, Beyond the Horizon; Became known throughout the country. Totality indicate chaos and hopelessness