Myth and Modern American Drama - Hardcover

PORTER, Thomas E.

9780814313602: Myth and Modern American Drama

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0814313604 ISBN 13: 9780814313602

Publisher: Wayne State, 1969

The contemporary student of dramatic criticism in America, unlike his counterparts in poetry and fiction, does not have a well-developed theoretical and analytical foundation from which to proceed. Apart from a "heterogenous collection of aphorisms and traditional tags," dramatic criticism tends toward a discrete focus, based on the shifting ground of personal opinion.

Seeking a more integral view, Father Porter persuasively recommends a course suggested by the Cambridge Anthropologists as a means to a more fundamental approach to dramatic criticism. His approach relates drama to the cultural milieu in which it is produced, and creates a basis upon which to examine dramatic structure and meaning in a unified context.

In the Introduction, the author examines what is involved in the cultural milieu as it relates to the theater. He includes the immediate American cultural situation as well as the dramatic tradition inherited by the playwright from his predecessors and the heritage of Western culture, "in effect, all those attitudes, ideals and traditions that determine or affect values, supply strategies and pattern human activities." A careful analysis of each of the major components of the cultural milieu utilizes illustrations from the plays subsequently studied in the book.

On the basis of this thorough groundwork, Father Porter has selected nine American plays for analysis. Some-Eugene O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Electra, T. S. Eliot's The Cocktail Party, and Archibald MacLeish's J. B.-draw on traditional or conventional literary and dramatic sources which are molded into a new dramatic shape by their fusion with American attitudes. Others-Sidney Kingsley's Detective Story, Miller's Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire, Thornton Wilder's Our Town, and Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?-use popular sub-literary genres or contemporary institutions to forge new patterns of dramatic action.

Just as the preceding nine chapters illustrate the utility of a general theoretical approach to dramatic criticism in the analysis of individual works, the concluding chapter vindicates the approach in terms of the light it enables Father Porter to shed on American drama per se. This work combines the virtues of an agreeable style and clarity of presentation with scholarly analysis. It will be valuable to scholars and students and the theatergoing public.

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Book Description:

Seeking a more integral view, Father Porter persuasively recommends a course suggested by the Cambridge Anthropologists as a means to a more fundamental approach to dramatic criticism.

About the Author:

Thomas E. Porter received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Loyola University in Chicago (1950, 1954) and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina (1965). He is a Jesuit priest and assistant professor of English at the University of Detroit.

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