Document Type
Essay
Publication Date
2024
Special Collections
Manuscripts
Description
One day in the wintry months of 1921, the late playwright Eugene O’Neill (1888-1953) learned of some ill-natured remarks that had been made regarding one of his plays. One critic in particular, Ernest Boyd, had described O’Neill’s work as being “depressing, unpleasant, and vulgar.” O’Neill, acting in defense of his creative merits, responded rather peculiarly in a follow-up letter sent to Boyd. That letter and other “original documents covering over a hundred years of Eugene O’Neill’s artistic work and life,” are all featured in the Harley Hammerman Collection on Eugene O’Neill. The display presents a curated and comprehensive model of the Irish-American playwright and incorporates not just the relics of O’Neill’s creative career, but also biographical elements, plus O’Neill’s unpublished personal works and written communications with critics. The collection follows a succession of works where “The story of O’Neill’s life yielded the stories (or plays) of O’Neill, which yielded the story of O’Neill’s life…which then yielded the story of the story of O’Neill, in biography, which then yielded the story of the story of the story of O’Neill in critical discussion of his life/plays/autobiography/biography.” This cumulative story outlined in “Hammerman’s O’Neill” details the successes and failures of O’Neill’s work and presents a more vulnerable tale of Eugene O’Neill, that being one of a misunderstood individual who sought cohesion between how he presented himself and how others perceived him.
Mendel Sato Research Award 2024
Recommended Citation
Langston-Wiebe, Audrey, "Identity Insecurity as Observed in Eugene O’Neill: Examining America’s Most Tragic Playwright in the Sociological Lens" (2024). Mendel Sato Research Award Projects. 8.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/msrae/8