The Collected Works of ONeal (6 Volumes)

Author: (American) Eugene O'Neill (ONeill, E.) written by Guo Jide edited
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: Eugene O'Neill is a renowned American tragic playwright, the founder and architect of modern American drama. In 1936, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, becoming a globally influential playwright. Arthur Miller, the Vice President of the P.E.N. Club and the grandmaster of contemporary American drama, highly praised O'Neill, saying, "In fact, he was well-read, familiar with Chinese philosophy and German philosophy, and began to seriously study ancient Greek. He was an extraordinary writer." O'Neill was born on October 16, 1888, in a hotel in the Broadway theater district of New York City. The brilliance of O'Neill as a master of drama lies in his ability to break free from simple psychoanalysis and place it within a specific social context, giving it a certain social meaning. His tragedies can be broadly divided into three categories, which can be further into five: Early works with a strong naturalistic realism; Mid-period experimental or exploratory tragedies that delve into the inner world, including expressionist tragedies, psychoanalytic tragedies, and faith-seeking tragedies; Late works that more realistically confront the harsh realities of life. O'Neill's love poetry is particularly prominent, accounting for a significant portion of his poetic creation. Due to his pulmonary disease, he stayed in a sanatorium for treatment between 1912 and 1913. In 1913 and 1914, he wrote poems for two female nurses, merely expressing friendship. In 1914, he began writing poems for his lover Beatrice Ash, and most of the poems from 1915 were written for her, filled with passion as intense as fire. In the long poem "On Our Beaches" (1914), O'Neill portrayed his and her inseparable love to the extreme.