Summary
Eugene O'Neill is widely considered the greatest American dramatist. Winner of the Nobel Prize in literature, O'Neill also received four Pulitzer Prizes over the course of his remarkable career.
Critical Companion to Eugene O'Neill explores the personal, historical, and artistic influences that combined to form such dark and influential American masterpieces as The Iceman Cometh, The Emperor Jones, Mourning Becomes Electra, Hughie, and—arguably the finest tragedy ever written by an American—Long Day's Journey into Night. Ideal for high school and college-level students, this new book covers all of O'Neill's works, as well as detailed entries on his life and related people, places, and topics.
Entries include:
- Synopses and critical assessments of all of O'Neill's plays
- Descriptions of O'Neill's characters
- Discussions of people, places, and topics important to O'Neill's life and work, including alcoholism, Greenwich Village, Paul Robeson, the labor movement, and more
- Appendixes, including a chronology, bibliographies of primary and secondary sources, and more.
Specifications
Black-and-white photographs and illustrations. Index. Appendix. Bibliographies. Cross-references. Chronology. In two volumes.
About the Author(s)
Robert M. Dowling, Ph.D., is associate professor of English at Central Connecticut State University and a member of the editorial board of The Eugene O'Neill Review. He is the author of Slumming in New York: From the Waterfront to Mythic Harlem and numerous scholarly articles. His edited version of "The Screenews of War," a previously unpublished short story by Eugene O'Neill, appeared in the journal Resources for American Literary Study. Dowling is currently coediting a critical anthology on O'Neill's early bohemian and radical influences.