Author Description

Product Description This comparative literature study examines Eugene O'Neill's long neglected link with the 19th century American literary tradition. It is the first scholarly work to focus exclusively on O'Neill's kinship with novelist Herman Melville. Thus, it sheds new light on aspects of O'Neill's craftsmanship that had hitherto been considered through a European looking-glass. With Melville, the playwright shared a satirical view of American Puritanism. Like the author of Moby Dick, he developed an intensely personal concept of tragedy and was fascinated by the sea. In other words, both writers attempted, through a strikingly similar sense of vision, to define the reality with which their contemporaries were confronted and thus to create compelling songs of American experience. Review «A book, long overdue, comparing these two great American authors has finally arrived as the work of a promising young European scholar, Marc Maufort, whose appreciation of the special nature of the similarity of the two is perceptive and instructive.» (Michael Manheim, President, Eugene O'Neill Society) «This book shows that American drama may claim its legitimate and so far underestimated place in the nation's literature.» (Gilbert Debusscher, Free University of Brussels) «An excellent book in which Maufort examines with much skill O'Neill's work from the vantage ground offered by the American tradition, more especially by Melville. Applying the specific methods of Comparative Literature to a national literature, Maufort is able to illuminate some of O'Neill's themes and motifs that have not received until now as much attention as they deserve. This book will be of interest to students of the American heritage, to comparatists, and to the general reader as well.» (Jean Weisgerber, Emeritus Professor of Comparative Literature, Free University of Brussels) «In a bold move that would have won O'Neill's approval, Maufort now confronts the playwrig