Contour in Time : The Plays of Eugene O'Neill

Professor Bogard traces the progress of O'Neill's art from crude, one-act plays to the monumental tragedies of his later years, all in relation to the playwrights tortured personal history. The book illuminates not only the plays, but also the literary, aesthetic, and historical influences on the playwright's development.

Eugene O''Neill, one of America''s most gifted and prolific playwrights, wrote more than 60 plays between 1914 and 1941, a level of creativity paralleled in modern times only by Bernard Shaw. The progress of his art from crude, one-act plays to the monumental tragedies of his later years is a story as dramatic and compelling as that of his tortured personal history. Combining the two, Professor Bogard traces the contours of O''Neill''s life in his art. By discussing, in their approximate order of composition, the published and unpublished works, Bogard illuminates not only the plays, but also the literary, aesthetic, and historical influences on the playwright''s development. For the revised edition of this insightful, meticulously written work, the author has added new and unpublished material on A Tale of Possessors, Self-dispossessed, a cycle of nine plays written by O''Neill during the 1930s and ''40s, only one of which he readied for the stage. Among the plays in this cycle that have been posthumously produced are More Stately Mansions (New York, 1967) and A Touch of the Poet (New York, 1958).