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1979

The Dramatic Theory of Maxwell Anderson and its Relationship to Review & Scholarly Criticism of the Tudor Trilogy

Andrew B. Trump

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Recommended Citation Trump, Andrew B., "The Dramatic Theory of Maxwell Anderson and its Relationship to Review & Scholarly Criticism of the Tudor Trilogy" (1979). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5094. https://openprairie.sdstate.edu/etd/5094

This Thesis - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE .DRAMATIC THEORY OF MAXWELL ANDERSON

AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO REVIEW

& SC HOLARLY CR IT IC ISM OF

THE TUDOR TRIL OGY

BY

ANDREW B. TRUMP

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts, Major in Speech, South Dakota State University 1979

______,.. • ._,, 11P\nAnV THE DRAMATIC THEORY OF MAXWELL AND ERSON

AND ITS RELAT IONSHIP TO REVIEW

& SCHOLARLY CR ITICISM OF

THE TUDOR TR ILOGY

This thesis is approved as· a creditabl e and independent investigat ion by a candidate for the degree, Master of Arts, and is acceptable for meet ing the thesis requirements for this degree.

Acceptance of this thesis does �ct imply that the conclusions reached by the candidate are necessarily the conclusions of the major department.

- �udit t)/Z;(v anovic ?"Dat ' ChairperM, Department of Speech

• �ames L. Jo n on te / e artment of S ch u TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter Page

I. INTRO DUCT ION 1

Origin of the Problem .. 1 Statement of the Problem 3 Procedure . . 4 Organization ...... 8 Justification ...... 9

II . MAXWELL ANDERSON 'S DRAMATIC THEORY 11

·Introduction ...... •... 11 The Dramatic Theory ...... 13 Poetry for the Modern Aud·; ence . . . 13 Tragedy--Aristotelian Infl uences on Anderson ' s Concepts of Character, Plot and Structure .. 19 Recognition ...... 19 Reversal ...... 20 Character Fl aw ...... •. 21 Plot and Structure ...... 22 Themes Essential to the Modern Audience 23 Summary ...... 26 Footnotes . . . • • . . . . 28

III. ANALYSIS OF REVIEW CRITICISM 31

Procedure and Organization 31 Poetry for the Modern Audience 31 El izabeth the Queen . . . . . • . 31 Mary of Scotland ...... 33 Anne of the Thou sand Days . . . . • 35 Summary ...... 39 Tragedy--Aristotelian Infl uences on Anderson ' s Concepts of Character, Plot and Structure . . 40 Character ...... 40 Elizabeth the Queen . . . 40 Mary of Scotland . . . . 43 Anne of the Thousand Days 47 Summary . . . . � . 51 Pl�t and Structure ...... 52 El izabeth the Queen . . . 52 Mary of Scotland . . . . . 54 Anne of the Thou sand Days . 58 Summary ...... • . 60 Themes for the Modern Audience .•.. 61 Elizabeth the Queen ... . 61 Mary of Scotland ...... 62 Anne of the Thousand Days . . 63 Summary ...... 63 Anderson's Estimation of Reviewers 64 Summary ...... · . • . . • • • . 66 Summary and Cone 1 us ions ...... • . . . • 67 Footnotes ...... • . 71

IV. ANALYSIS OF SCHOLARLY CRITICISM 76

Procedure and Organization . 76 Poetry for the Modern Audience 76 Summary ...... • . . . • . . . 85 Tragedy--Aristotel ian Infl uences on Anderson's Concepts of Character, Plot and Structure 87 Character . . . • . . . . . • . 87 Summary ...... 100 Plot and Structure ...•.. 101

· Summary ...... • 105 Themes for the Modern Audience . 105 Summary • ...... • • • 109 Summary and Conclusions .. ... 109 Footnotes ...... • 113

V. COMPARISONSt CONTRASTS, AND CONCLUSIONS . 118 Comparisons and Contrasts Among Reviewers,

Scholars, and Anderson' s Theory ...... ••.• 11 8 Poetry for the Modern Audience ...... 118 _Tragedy--Aristotelian Infl uences on Anderson 's Concepts of Character , Plot and Structure 119 Themes for the Modern Audience 120 Final Conclusions ...... 121

LIST OF SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY . • . • 125

• r CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Origin of the Problem . Playwrights and critics {both reviewers and scholars) have an interesting relation ship in the theatre. Plays in the form of performance, unpublished manuscripts, and published texts come under the scrutiny of cri tics who then give interpretation to the works of playwrights. Most elements of playwrit ing are examined: language, imagery; character development. Searches are conducted for t1·e obvious and the most .subtle of nuance. Phrasing is looked at closely by critics for consistency or contradiction . Out of this effort the critics rati onalize singular or collective theories conc erning drama- . tists and their work in an attempt to provide insight for int erested readers.

Reviewers and scholarly critics, while occ upyin g the same general intent in giving as much considered opinion as possible to dramat ic works, go about their respective tasks in different ways and from dissimilar circumstances to arrive at final judgments. Reviewers often write in the irrmediate heat of post- performance glow or letdown for weekly and monthly magazines or daily newspapers, these hav ing a wide base of circulation . .The rev i ews are ai med at a readership deciding whether or not to part with the price of tickets . Deadl ines for publicat ion in the more broadly- based medium are a matter of days or even ho urs after initial exposure to the 2

dramatic work under consideration, and often without benefit of a text before the revi ewer. Scholarly cr itics, contributing to jour­ nals with more limited readerships often give the ir opinions after qui et cont emplat ion and consideration of the texts of plays : the resulting articles are meant to be read by other scholars or

interested students of literary and dramatic cri ticism.

Whether praised or attacked by critics, most playwri ghts con­ tinue to write and . prepare their works for performance and publ ica­ tion, rarely answer ing critics publicly or by writing their own criticism or theory. On e exception was Maxwell Anderson (188n-1959), who began his career .as a playwright in 1923 and continued to write through the 1950's . Anderson ' s drama became well known and popular when his first theatrical success, What Price Glory?, was enthusi as­ tically received in 1924. The enthusiasm lasted well into the

1930' s and after with a series of verse dramas . With these plays and their cri tical receptions Anderson was assured of a prominent place in the American theatre of that peri od. But Anderson also expounded on dramatic theory and criticism, publishing his ideas to justify his approach to writing plays and to rebuke others who passed judgment on his dramatic work.

Maxwel l Anderson 's dramatic and theoretical works, the critics who commented upon his plays, the di sput es, agreements, and digres­ sions engendered have proved to be interesting, informative, and often lively reading, and have outlined a significant period of development in American theatre during the first hal f of the twentieth century. 3

Statement of the Problem

This study . proposed to establ ish a bas ic overview of Maxwel l

Anderson ' s dramatic theory, then to analyze review and scholarly criticism of three An derson plays. according to guidel ines set up in the study. Finally, it proposed to draw conc lusions·concerning the critics' emphases rel ating to Anderson 's theory and the contribution this playwright-critic "cl ash" exhibited for the study of theatre and dramatic criticism.

Maxwel l Anderson 's dramat ic theory as stated in his essays

Wl·S uti lized as a framework for agreement, comparison, and contrast with a body of revi ews and scholarly articl es abo ut Anderson 's three pl ays . This review and schol arly criticism was analyzed in respec­ tive chapters according to gui del ines that were found to stem directly from ideas expressed in Anderson 's theory . The revi ews analyzed were those from weekly and monthly magazines, quarterly jo urnals, and issues of the New York Times on the fol lowing pl ays :

El izabeth the Queen, 1930; Mary of Scotl and, 1933; Anne of the

Thousand Days, 1948.

Anderson 's theory, as devel oped in essays, was published periodi cally from the late teens and early 1920' s through the

1950's, especially in contributions to the New York Times. Wri tings up to the 1940's were col l ected under two titles, The Essence of

Tragedy and Other Footnotes and Papers {1939) and Off-Broadway:

Essays About the Theatre {1947). The three plays span an eighteen­ year range representing Anderson's first years as a verse playwri ght, 4 his subsequent output of verse drama , and the eventual completion of the three pl ays known as the "Tudor tr ilogy. 11 The years 1930-1948 also saw Anderson bring forth such pl ays as Val ley Forge, Night Over

Taos, The Wingl ess Victory, High Tor , Key Largo, and the most wel l­ known verse play Anderson wrote came during this time, the twentieth century verse play, .Winterset . This was a crucial period for

Anderson as a pl aywright and theorist. Revi ews , schol arly articl es, and Anderson 's theory al l serve as complements to one another in exami ning the intent of the pl aywr.ight and the subsequent interpre­ tat ion of An derson by his cri tics.

Procedure

1. A survey of the fol lowing reference works was conducted to det ermine the extent of previous academic studies of Maxwel l

Anderson :

Auer , J. Jeffrey , "Doctoral Dissertations in Speech: 11 Monographs, annu Work in' Progress, Speech al issues , 1956- 1969.

Bibl io ra hie Annual in S eech Commun ication, ( Speech Comnunication Assoc i ati on , Vol umes I-VI .

Comprehen sive Dissertat ion Index: Commun ication and the Arts, 1861-19 72 , Suppl ements 19 73, 19 74, Part 2, Ann Arbor, Michigan : Un iversity Microfi lms.

Dissertation Abstracts International , Part A, Ann Arbor, Mic higan : University Microfilms, 1956-1979 .

Dissertations Acce ted by American Un iversities, annual issues , 1935-19S 5, New York: H. W. Wil son Company. of Theses in the el d Dow, Clyde w., "Ab stracts Fi of Speech," Speech Monographs, ann ual issu·es, 1956-1969. 5

Litto; Frederic M. , American Dissertations on Drama and the Theatre - A Bibl iography, Kent State Uni versity, 1969.

Masters Abstracts: Abstracts of Sel ected Masters Thes is of Microfilm, Volumes .I-XIV, Ann Arbor, Michigan : Un i vers ity Microfilms , 1962-1976.

2. There were a number of unpubl ished masters theses and

doctoral dissertations from the late 1930 ' s to .the early 1970 's that

used Maxwel l Anderson ' s work in whol e, or in part, in their respec-

tive studies. The fol lowing titles were found during research and

it was determined they could yiel d beneficial information , especial ly

i;. their bibl iographies, to the writer of this study:

Buchanan, Randal l John , "Maxwel l Anderson's Rules of Playwri ting and Their Appl ication to His Plays," (unpubl ished Ph.D. dissertation, Louisiana State Un iversity, 1964) .

Bl anchard, Fred C. , "The Place of Maxwel l Anderson in the American Theater, " (unpubl ished Ph.D. thesis, New York Un ivers ity, 1939).

Cox, Martha H. , "Maxwel l Anderson and His Cri tics, 11 (unpubl ished Ph.D. dissertation, Un i versity of Arkansas, 1955).

Gil bert , Vedder M. , "Maxwel l Anderson : His Inter­ pretation of Tra gedy in Six Poetical Dramas," (unpubl i shed M.A. thesis, Cornel l University, 1938).

Mordoff, Helen Lee, "Dramatic Theor-ies of Maxwel l Anderson ,'' (unpubl ished M.A. thesis, Corn el l Uni versity, 1942).

Nardin, James T., "Maxwel 1 Anderson: A Critical Estimate," (unpubl ished M.A. thesis, Lehigh Univers ity, 194 7).

Four titles and authors were availabl e through purchase from

Un iversity Microfi lms, inter-li brary loans, and abstracts: a Xerox 6 copy of Randal l John Buchanan ' s study was bought from University

Microfi lms; an abstract of Fred C. Blan�hard's thesis was obtained from NYU ; a microfi lm of Martha H. Coxis dissertation was lent from the Univers ity of Arkansas; and Cornel l Un iversity lent a copy of

Vedder M. Gil bert's thesis. The two remai ning titles could not be obtained.

The Buchanan, Blanchard, and Cox studies were� in their respective contexts, overviews of the body of Anderson 's work.

Cox's study, of particular interest here, charted the critical r�spon se to the total of Anderson ' s performed stage plays from 1923 to 1955 . Through the reading and analyz ing of more than 1,500 revi ews and articles, Cox att empted, in a chronol ogical survey, to reach general conclusions about the critical reception of Anderson .

Buchanan al so took a chronological approach. By establ ishing

Anderson 's "rules of playwriting" from his dramatic theory essays ,

Buchanan showed the extent to which Anderson applied these rules to all of his publ ished plays. Blanchard examined the tren ds of theatre in Anderson 's time; surveyed the body of his plays (as it then existed) for content on their stages of background, wri ting, product ion; then, he pol led professional and scholarly cri tics about the worth of An derson 's work and his subsequent infl uence in the theatre. Gil bert, by limiti�g himsel f to six verse plays, analyz ed

Anderson 's use and interpretation of tragedy compared to the tragic standards establ ished by Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Victor Hugo. 7

Abstracts of other titles showed approaches to the survey and analysis .of Maxwel l Anderson 's dramatic· works as literature or the use of cri ticism as support for hypotheses the indivi dual writers were mak ing. No study had been previously con ducted that used the central tenets of Anderson 's dramat ic theory as a bas is for com­ parison and contrast to det ermine how successful Anderson was in ful filling his goals in theatre as determined by review and scholarly criticism of the "Tudor tri logy" plays. This study made that its goal ; it was neither a chronological nor literary survey of

A�derson's work.

3. A review was made of sources li sting al l publ ished reviews and arti cles about Maxwel l Anderson and as many of these listed publ ications as were available were gathered.

Cursory reading of initial material s that were gathered revealed references to more sources and articl es about Anderson.

The Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature listed publ ished revi ews of all of Anderson ' s plays. Particularly hel pfu l were Dramatic

Criticism by Arthur Coleman and Gary R. Ty ler, and Dramatic Criticism

Index by Paul F. Breed and Florence M. Sni derman. Martha Cox 's

Maxwell Anderson Bibl i ography gave the most comprehen sive listing of revi ews and arti cles, especially ol der and less well-known refer­ ences. Books that were about Anderson or that mentioned him as part of a larger study proved useful in provided background material, bibl i ography sources , and idea devel opment. These included Mabel

Dri scoll Bailey's Maxwell Anderson: Playwr ight as Prophet , a 8 published version of her earl ier dissertation; Barrett H. Clark's

Maxwel l Anderson : The Man and His Plays ; and Al fred S. Sh ivers '

Maxwel l Anderson . These works al l provided fu ll bibl iographies and informat ion for background. Other books on dramatic criticism that were consulted were Essays in Modern Literary Critici'sm by Bernard

F. Dukore, and Criticism: Speculative and Analytical Essays , a com- pilation edited by L. s. Dembo. In its analysis of Maxwel l An derson's dramatic theory and the criticism of his three plays, this study utili zed only corrvnentary published in reviews and articl es printed in newspapers , maga�ines , and journals. In one instance a book of col lected essays was used in order to analyze one specific essay that proved beneficial to this study.

Organ ization

Chapt er II outl ined the centra l ideas of Maxwel l An derson's dramatic theory:

1) Poetry for the Modern Audience

2) Tragedy--Aristotel ian Infl uences on Anderson 's Concepts of Character, Plot and Structure

3) Themes for the Modern Audience

Using the central ideas expressed in Anderson's dramatic theory as guiding criteria and as subheadings for organizati on , Chapter II I analyzed revi ews of three An derson plays: Elizabeth the Q een , Mary of Scotlan d, and Anne of the Thousand Days . Chapter III came to conclusions about the fol lowing: 9

1) Agreement and disagreement revi ewers had concern ing

Anderson 's three pl ays and· indirectly with his dramatic theory.

2) Aspects of Anderson 's wri ting revi ewers foc used on most and those they·most often overlooked.

3) Changes ev i dent in revi ewers' later approaches in· eval uating Anderson 's plays ·as compared to earl ier critiques.

Chapter IV, again using the theory gui del ines establ ished in

Chapter II as a basis for organ ization, analyzed a body of schol arly criticism on Maxwel l Anderson's plays and arrived at conclusions about the fol lowing:

1) Aspects of Anderson 's three pl ays scholars foc used on most and those they most often overlooked.

2) Points of agreement and disagreement with Anderson 's plays in the body of schol arly cri ticism under analysis. 3) Agreements and disputes scholars most often exhibited amongst themselves while analyzing Anderson's plays. 4) Changes scholars noted in Anderson 's work as they wrote about him ov er the years.

Chapter V drew conclusions and comparison s concerning agreement and disagreement, simi larities and differences amon g the revi ewers, schol ars, and Anderson 's theory; finally, it showed the. contribution of this critical "contest" to dramatic criticism.

Justification

Because of the general lack of very recent publ ication on

Maxwel l Anderson , once a very prominent American playwright, his contributions to theatre seemed overl ooked and unappreciated. This 10 writer fel t new academic research was needed from the standpoint of

Anderson's dramat ic theory and cri ticism of him as a playwright.

This study can provide val uable informat ion for the student interested in theatre cri ticism and suppl ies analys is of the playwright-critic rel ationship in general� regarding·both review and scholarly criticism, and of Anderson's tri logy .plays in particular.

Al so, it serves as a contributi�n to theatre history by showing the ideas an American playwright expressed and attempted to bring to fruition, and how wel l or ill he was judged by critics during that t�me.

The playwright-critic rel ationship is a very important on e which deserves study and understanding by interested observers:

ch students, schol ars, audiences, ·an d readers. Su a rel ationship allows theatre to receive and analyze new ideas, constantly shaking this institution from ever- present , and ultimately threaten ing, complacency. At the same time, it is useful to note the manner in which playwr i ghts and critics may work at cross- purposes. Maxwel l

Anderson , as both playwright an d theorist, provides an ideal medium for a study which can place the playwright- critic rel ationship in perspective. CHAPTER II

MAXWELL ANDERSON'S

DRAMATIC THEORY

Introduction

Before attempting an analysis of Maxwel l Anderson's dramatic theory, it is necessary to esta�1 i sh An derson's standards for "art ," of which theatre, and more specifically poet ic tragedy, is a part.

Anderson saw the worth of art best exampl ified in longevity: "The test of a message is its continJing effect on the minds of.men over

111 ·a period of generations. In An derson 's mind, art and its

"message" was represented by a very slow growth that man experiences through an "artistic fa ith": "The artistic faith is simply a fa ith . 2 in the human race and his gradual acquisition of wisdom.11

Emphasizing faith, Anderson at the same time. saw much ambiguity in . the future of the human race: "What fa ith men wi 11 then have • • • I don't know, having fllYSel f on ly a fa ith that men will have a faith.113 Theatre to Anderson had rel igious significance, as this on e of many references to the classical past indicates :

The theater originated in two completely rel igious ceremo­ nies, one cel ebrating the animal in man and one cel ebrating the god. Old Greek Comedy was dedicated to the spirits of lust and riot and earth, sp irits which are certainly necessary to the health and continuance of the race. Greek tra gedy was dedicated to man 's aspiration, to his kinship with the gods, to hi s unending bl ind att empt to lift im­ self above the lusts and his pure ani mal ism into a world where 4here are other val ues, than of pleasure and sur­ vival. 12

. This two-fol d aspect of theatre represented to Anderson the condition of man: he was capable of inspiration ·and rising to noble en ds yet

he was weak and susceptibl e to his baser instincts. Theatre, as a

rel igious experience, would nudge man closer to his noble potential .

Anderson justified theatre as being rel igion in this ·way: d I have foun my .rel igion in the theatre, wh.ere I 1 east expected to find it, and where few wi ll credit it exists. But it is there, and any man amon g you who tries to write plays will fi nd himsel f serving it, if on ly he works his apprenticeship, that the theatre is the central artistic symbol of good and ev il within man. 5 .

The "central artistic sy mbol " just· al l uded to will be especial ly

relevant to Anderson's ideas on theme.

Basical ly, Anderson 's theory was underl ined by the fol lowing:

the best art [meaning theatre] was the result of endurance that came

from many years of acceptance and undying faith .in human potential ·

as opposed to earthly weaknesses. Theatre, to Anderson , was a rel i­

gion based upon fa ith in mankind and this particular art form.

Along with George Bernard Shaw, Anderson thought of the theatre as a

place of worship: "a cathedral of the sp irit, devoted to the 6 exaltation of man. 11 Anderson often return ed to the rel igious

significance of theatre, this concept having stemmed from his

admiration of the anc ient Greeks. This concept will serve as a

foundation upon which an analysis of Anderson 's dramatic theory wi ll

rest. 13

The Dramatic Theory

Employing the criteria set up in Chapter I, the fol lowing

subheadings will be used in the analysis of Anderson's dramat ic

theory:

1) Poetry for the Modern Audience

2) Tragedy-- Ari stotel ian In fl uences on Anderson's Concepts of Character, Plot and Structure

3) Themes Essential for the Modern Audience

It was upon these aspects that Anderson most often wrote when com­

menting on theatre. Anderson attempted to gain a modern insi ght

into·the great theatrical achievements of the past. Unlike many

other observers of twentieth century American theatre, Anderson

wrote plays that refl ected the ideas in his theory.

Poetry for the Modern Audience

Just after World War I, Anderson looked at the artistic scene of writers and found despair and cynisism because, as he wrote in 1920: "The war robbed us of certain sensibilities--made them look 7 in retrospect 1 ike affectations.11 Anderson al so fo und poetic efforts to be extremely wantin ;

What are poets do ing and sayi ng, in this age of disillu­ sion which gives promises of gl ories in the verse of tomorrow? They sit sadly, by twos and threes, in the back rooms of restaurants , discussing the futility of effort and the disappearance of aesthet ic standards •••on on e thing on ly will they agree with any unanimity--the utter lack of fundamental s on which to bui ld. 8

These years were to Anderson a time of impermanence: "We have seen 9 concepts and traditions vanish like names written in water. 11

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TY SOUTH DAKOTAS LIBRARY 14

Anderson saw little from contemporaries that he fel t could prov ide a

lasting, inspirat ional effect. He detected only static lament.

Anderson wi shed to hel p bring about something in art ot her

than the despair of the times. In 1919 Anderson had wr i tten : 0 "Amer ica has not yet been expressed. 111 He wanted to· be a part of

bringing this about , if proper conditions could .be met :

••• if we stage a renaissa�ce it wi ll be unlike the on e for which we remember El i zabeth •••such awakenings have been marked by fa ith an d confidence, by emot ional tension and a lov1 of life for which we can offer no substitute or paral lel. 1

Anderson cl aimed the past offered the greatest examples of poc�ry

that had a "continuin-g effect over the generations." In his mind

the poet ic masters from the past were most sec ure in their fa iths

and in the goodness of the human race:

The writers of poetry in every previous play have felt some ground or ot her sol id beneath their feet. Shakespeare, discoura ged as he may have been with human ity, was sti ll possessed of the Ptol emaic ill usion. Man was to him the center of the uni verse, clay, yet godl ike.12 Those responsibl e for the great achievements in the past di d not indulge in the despair that An derson saw around him; rather, they were faithful and confident men , secure in their times and worship­

ful of mankind. That optimism, Anderson professed, produced the most imnortal work of literate man . In contrast, in its literary

output, the twenti eth century was obsessed with the "c 1 ay". Anderson was enamored of the cl assics: he often ci ted the accompli shments of the anc ient Greeks and the El izabethans. Like many before and after him, Anderson saw these two periods as 15 representing the best of poetic creativity. He stated that a similar experience was needed in the twentieth century; however , on ly special men coul d be counted on to bring this about :

Those who have read their literary history carefully know that now is the time for our native am�sements to be transformed into a national art of power and beauty. It needs the touch of the poet to make the transformat ion, a poet comparable to Aeschyl us in Greece or Marlowe in Engl and. Without at least one such we shall never have a great theatre in our country� an d he must come soon , for 13 · these chances don 't en dµre forever . .

This bel ief in the cl assical tradition was fol l owed by other state­ ments indicating that the past displayed certai nty. He al so expressed another of his intensely-hel d bel iefs , faith as expressed by confident men : "Mil ton pl anted his feet firmly on the tradition of an al l-wise Provi dence, an d his verse ri ngs cl early, free of 14 doubt.11 In Anderson 's est imat ion, such poets and bel iefs were sadly lacking in the twentieth century post- war experience. The modern theatre fa iled to measure up to Anderson 's expec- tations a�d goals. The disappointment began with the shortcomings of contemporary playwri ghts: "Our modern dramatists are not poets, 15 and the best prose in the world is inferior to the best poetry. 11

In ill ustrating the dichotomy between prose and poetry, Anderson showed the two forms of lan guage as hav ing differences in intent: "To me it is inescapable that prose is the language of information 16 and poetry the language of emot ion. 11 In other words: pr se informs and is factual , objective, an d logical ; poetry transforms and ennobles through lyrical an d other emotional-arousing uses of 16 L'

language. In his writing the poet expressed fervent ideas in which

he and his reader could find common ground, ideas about which men

had expressed themselves many times :

The writers of ep ics cel ebra·e the youth, the hope, the victory, the dis illusion and T"r:e defeat of man ; the writers of lyrics are always 1·,Jung, and their constant theme is the anguish of youth in its first contact with real ity and inevitable despair, the authors. of tragedy offer the largest hope for .manki nd which I can discern in the great poetry of the earth, a hope that man is greater than his cl ay, that 'the spirit of men may rise superior to physical defeat and death. 1 7

Poetry expressed, or was an attempt to express, the inexpl icabl e; it

attempted to show a cornnitment to inspiration. To Anderson , �rose

could not meet this requi rement .

Anderson yearned for the form he saw least in modern theatre ,

beauty in language: "I have a -stron g and chronic hope that the

· theater of this country will outgrow the phase of journal ist ic

social comnent and reach occasionally into the upper air of poetic 18 tragedy. 11 Anderson al lied himsel f with Goethe in insisting that 19 dramatic ·poetry was the most admirable creation of literary man. In the 1920 's Anderson turned to playwriting and the first

play he authored, White Desert , a verse drama , was produce • He used

verse because he "was tired of plays in prose that never lifted from 20 the ground. 11 This was Anderson ' s first attempt to bring together

again the stage and poetry, or verse, the term he used most often

when he discussed poetry. It was during this period that Anderson

wrote What Price Glory?, a war pl ay col l aboration with Laurence

Stal l ings. In 1930 with the writing of Eli zabeth the Queen and 17 during most of the following years, Anderson often returned to verse. Eventually_ Anderson 's pl aywriting in this vein culminated in his best- known work, Winte rset , a verse drama set. in depression- era New York. Winterset has al so been analyzed for its classical content: it has been shown to have a Romeo and Jul iet motif and 21 likened to a revenge tragedy.

Anderson had establ ished himsel f as a pl aywright of histori­ cal drama. The settings in the historical pl ays were of the conven- tional type for the genre: circumstances, manners, fi gures of

��eech, and characters with which audiences of the present century were not immediately familiar. Anderson at this point was fol lowing the cl assical poets in their form and content. To make poetic tragedy into a dramat ic event with twentieth century surroundings onstage woul d be something new, Anderson claimed:

••• Winterset is largely in verse, and treats a contem­ porary tragic theme, which makes it more of an experi ment than I coul d wish, for the great masters themselv es never tried to make tragic poetry out of the stuff of their own times. To do so is to attempt to establ ish a new conven­ tion, one that may prove impossible of acceptance, but to which I was dri ven by the lively historical sense of our day-- a knowl edge of period, costume, and manners which almost shuts off the writer on historical themes from con­ temporary corT111ent.22

At fi rst Anderson took the more con ventional path to poetic tragedy that his much admired predecessors had taken . "There is not one . tragedy by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes, Shakespeare, Corneille, or Racine which did not have the advantage of a setting either far 23 away or long ago, 11 Anderson wrote. 18

Audiences in Anderson's time had been mostly exposed to the

theatre of "real ism" or "impressionism" and poet ic drama was new to

most theatregoers. Audiences were used to the prose drama and did

not see the rel evancy of poetry on stage:

So emphat ic is this feel ing that on e is doubtfu l of being able to explain to this major ity that verse was once the accepted convention on the stage, as prose is now, that prose fought its way into playbooks with difficulty at the beginning of the scientific era in which we live and wi ll hold its place there on ly so long as men make a rel igion of fact and bel ieve that informat ion, conveyed in sta­ tistical language, can make them free.24

The idea of bringing poet ic drama back to the stage as a fu lly

ac.:epted artistic form appealed to Anderson as a worthy chal lenge;

as a playwr ight he attempted this form that most of his contem­

poraries either only talked about or chose to bypass al together.

Poetry and theatre must ·be brought together again on the

· modern stage, Anderson pleaded. Yet throughout his often- eloquent

essays, Anderson did not reveal a general or specific style of verse

wri ting that would fu lfil his intent ions. Instead, Anderson

repeatedly cited past accomplishments by the anc ient Greek and

Renaissance poets. These highpoints were Anderson ' s main frame of

reference for literature, poetry , and drama. Because of such

referral s it can be assumed Anderson wished to emu late the achieve- ments of those he most admired. In his dramatic theory Anderson did

not proclaim any "styl e" that _ he wished to develop in his verse

wri ting, other than to be influenced by the "irrmortal greats ." 19

Tragedy--Aristotel ian Infl uences on Anderson's Concepts of Character, Plot and Structtire

"I reread Ari stotle 's Poetics in the light of some bitter

experience,1 1 Anderson wrote, "and one of his observat ions led me to 25 a comparison of ancient an d modern playwriting methods. 11 In

setting up the central ideas expressed in Anderson 's theory, it is

necessary to establ ish this sel f-admitted infl uence of Aristotle on

Anderson.

Recognition

Aristotl e and Anderson put emphasis on "recognition," or , more accurately, "discovery. " Aristotle stated that recognition was the change from ignorance to knowl edge on the part of those marked out for tragedy. A "recognition" along with a "reversal" is to bring about an evocat ion of "pity and fear." Anderson professed the

Aristotel ian bel ief in the heart of a play ' s devel opment as being

"recognition": The recognition scene, as Aristotle isolated the tragedies of the Greeks , was generally an artific ial dev ice, a central scene in which the leading character saw through a disguise, recogn ized as a fr iend or as an enemy, perhaps as a lover or as a member of his own family, some person whose identity has been hidden . 26

Anderson qual ified his own bel ief in "recognition" by cal ling it

"artificial " and fel t the above usage was inappropriate for "modern" drama save for detective stories; however, like Aristotle, Anderson thought recognition, asi de from disguised or unvei led identity, gave direction to a play. For the purposes here outl ined, "recognition" as used by Aristotle and Anderson wi ll mean "discovery, 11 especially

in regard to character. For the modern theatre, stated Anderson , . . . .. 2 7 . "the e 1 emen t o f d.is covery is JUSt as important as ever. Discov ery

in Anderson's usage meant the finding of an unknown strength by a character within himsel f as the tragic situation unftil ded.

Reversa 1

Through a character's devel opme�t , a particular dramatic milieu had to be establ ished leading then to the reversal point.

Anderson stated that the discovery hi ghl i ghts the reversal :

The leading character •••must make the discovery, it must effect him emot ionally; and it must al ter his direction in the pl ay •••the discovery has a profoun d emotional effect on the hero; and gives an en tirely new direction to his action in the pl ay. 28

A reversal or "crisis" had to be central to a character and his actions:

• ••a play should lead up to and away from a central cr1s1s, and this cri sis should consist in a discovery by the l�ading character which has an indel ible effect on his thought and emot ion and completely al ters his course of act ion.29

Anderson demanded the central ity of this discov ery in the play :

"Everyth ing el se in the pl ay shoul d be subordinated to this one 30 episode.11 Anderson wi shed to emphasize the inner workings of the main character, showing a course of action leading up to an equally logical recognition and reversal that changes the character's and, hence, the pl ay's whole course of action. However, the exact dimen­ sions of the discovery were not always imnediatel y apparent. 21

Aristotle was concerned with events that lead up to the reversal 31 that resulted from. "probability and necessity. 11 Character deve­

lopment and the action of a play are very much intertwined as shown

in Aristotle's and Anderson 's respective wri tings; the infl uence of

the ancient Greek phil osopher on the more recent American playwright is very ev i dent.

Character Fl aw

A tragic character coul d not be perfect and without fault, or

be whol ly villainous ; Aristotle stated: "Both viol ates our human 32 sympathy and contains nothing of the pitiabl e or fearfu l in it.11

"What is left, 11 cont inued Ar istotle, "is someone who fal ls in between 33 these extremes. 11 Anderson paralleled this Aristotel ian guidel ine closely and indebted himsel f on ce again to the philosopher:

The hero who is to make the centra l discovery in a pl ay must not be a perfect man . He must have some variation of what Aristotle cal ls a tragic fault; and the reason he must have it is that when he ma kes his di scovery he must change both in himsel f and in his action--but if he has no fault he cannot change for the. better, but on ly for the _ worse, it is necessary that he become more admirable, and not less so, at the end of the play.34

A character who is perfect is static. He detracts from the hole

purpose of the play which is to bri ng about an improvement through

his insight into a previously misjudged course of action on his part

and the attempt he makes to .rectify the error •

• • • a hero must pass through an experience which opens his eyes to an error of his own . He must learn through suf­ fering. In a tragedy he suffers dea� h as a con sequence of his fault or his attempt to correct 1t . But before he 22

dies he has· become a nobler person because of his recogni­ tion of his fa ult an d the con sequent al terat ion of his course of act ion. In a serious pl ay which does not end in death he suffers a lesser punishment , but the pattern remains the same. In both forms he has a fault to beg in with, he discovers that fault .duri ng the course of the ' act ion, and does what he can to rectify it at the end. 35 In a cathart ic experience, the audience, while observing this character on stage, becomes ennobl ed itself.

Plot and Structure

It is difficult to separate An derson's comments on plot and structure from the rest of his theory. Anderson interl aced ideas on plot and structure with comments on character, as shown in this passage concerning the con struction of a play:

He [the playwright] must build his plot aroun d a scen e wherein his hero discovers some mortal fra ilty or stupid­ ity in himsel f, and faces life armed with a new wisdom. He must so arrange his story that it will prove to the audience that men pass through suffering purified.36

Anderson failed to make a cl ear del ineation between plot/structure and character ; however , he emphasized the importance of a character coming to a real ization of his previously misguided judgment. This again refl ected Aristotle, especial ly in regard to the fol l owing statement from the Poet ics:

Aspects of the plot must devel op directly from the constructi on of plot, itsel f, so that they occur from prior events eithe� out of necessity or according to the laws of probability. For it makes quite a difference whethe they occur because of these events or merely after. S 7 Anderson ' s theory refl ected the propter hoc and post hoc differen­ tiat ion and he fol l owed the idea of conseque�t ial devel opment . Both 23

Aristotle and Anderson bel ieved in the pl ot line "that arises from the incidents themsel ves, striking as they do with astonishment 38 through the very probability of their occurrence.1

Themes Essential to the Modern Audience

Despite the accompl ishments made in the twentieth century,

Anderson fel t man needed some form of direction:

Men have not been altered by.the invention of airplanes and the radio. They are sti ll al one and fr i ghtened, holding their chance tenure of life in utter isolation in the desol ate region of revolvin g fires. Science may offer a few necessary quest ions for them , but in the end sci ence itsel f is obl i ged to say that the fact is created by the spi rit, not spirit by the fact. 39

Themes in Anderson ' s reference were a centra l control ling element of a play in al l its aspects-- character, plot and structure.

Themes .were also guides to human experience with man portrayed as bettering himself in some way within the confi nes of earthly existence. Most themes seemed to center on the struggl e of the good and bad within man , and, to Anderson , the theatre shoul d reflect this:

•••the theatre is the centra l artistic symbol of the struggl e of good and ev il within men . Its teaching is that the struggle is eternal and unremitting, that the forces which tend to dra g men down are al ways ready to attack, that the forces which make for good cannot sleep through a night without danger. 40

Themes to Anderson offered "lessons" illustrating succinct concepts: 'O edipus Ty rannus 1 and 1MacBeth1 and 'Little Eyol f' and 'The Little Foxes ' teach on e and al l that ev il reven ges itsel f upon the doer. 'Antigone' and 'Haml et ' and ten 24

thousand modern plays agree that injustice is a corrosive, and will eat the heart out of him �ho practi ces it.41

Such bas ic themes, stated Anderson, had fascinated audiences for

many years and would continue to do so.

Themes al so tied into Anderson ' s concern for longevity:

"Analyze any pl ay you pl ease which has surv ived the test of con­ tinued favor and you wi ll find a moral or a rule of soc ial conduct

or a rule of thumb which the human race has con sidered val uable 42 enough to learn and pass along. 11 Anderson stated that plays-and their themes mi ght refl ect "money isn ' t everything" and "tol erance

is the great virtue" in such works as You Can 't Take It With You and 43 The Time of Your Life, respectively. In ill ustrating this,

Anderson showed one main aspect of the themat ic nature of the pl ay:

"A play is not required to make ethical discoveries. It is on ly required to have a meaning, and a sound on e, on e, that is, which is 44 accepted as sound by its audience. 11 Anderson said the audience hel d certain preconceptions, outlooks, traditions, and biases with which the pl aywright had to contend. This puts great demands upon the dramat ist: "It is incumbent upon the poet to be prophet , dreamer of the rac ial dream ••• the theater, more than any other art , has the power to wel d and determine what the race will 45 become. 11 Anderson was giving great status to the truly poet ic playwright, cal ling him an i nterpreter of man 's aspirations. Thi s, to Anderson, was the most effective use of theatre and theme. 25

Theme, whi le refl ecting the accepted standards of a par­

ticular audience and providing guidance within those limitations,

should also bring about some change in the audience; the change,

Anderson reasoned, did not have to be overt :

As audiences change the standards of good and evil change, though slowly and unpredictably, and the mean ings of plays change with the centuries. One thing is certain; that- an audience watching a play wi ll go al ong with it on ly when the leading character respon ds in the en d to what it con­ siders a higher moral purpose than moved him at the beginning of the story, though the audience will of course define morality as it pleases and in the terms of its own day. It may be that there is no absol ute up or down in this world, but the race sti ll bel ieves that there is, and will not hear of any denial . 46

Audiences wished to be reassured and, whi le they themselves might change, they would not necessarily be aware of it. In working with thematic mat erial , Anderson discovered what he cal led ei ght "essential s" in pl aywriting which he fel t worked most successfully to bring across the theme in a play:

1 . The story of a pl ay must be the story of what happens within the mind or heart of a man or woman . It cannot deal primarily with external events. The external events are on ly symbol ic of what goes on within.

2. The story of a play must be a confl ict , and specifi­ cally, a con fl ict between the forces of good and ev �l within a singl e person . The good and ev il to be defined, of course, as the audience wants to see them. 3 . The protagon ist of a pl ay must represent the forces of good and must win, or , if he has been ev il , must yiel d to the forces of the. good, and know himsel f defeated.

4. The protagonist of a play cannot be a perfect perso • If he were he coul d not improve, and he must come out at the end of the play a more admirable human being than he went in. 26

5. The protagonist of the play must be an exceptional person . He or she cannot be run- of- the-mi 11. The man in the street will not do as the hero of a play •••He must be so presented as to epitomize qual ities which the audience can admire. Or he must indicate how admirable human qualities can be wasted or perverted-­ must define an ideal by fa l ling short of it, or become sumbol ic of a whole cl ass of men who are blocked by circumstances from ach ieving excel lence in their 1 i ves.

6. Excel lence on the st ge is al ways moral excel lence. A struggl e on the part of � hero to better his material circumstances is of no interest in a play unless he comes out of his trial a better man.

7. The moral atmosphere of a pl ay must be hea l thy. An audience wi ll not en dure the· tri umph of ev il on the sta ge.

8. There are human qual ities for which the race has a special liking on the stage ; in a man , positive character , strength of conviction not shaken by opposition; in a woman , fidel ity, passionate faith. There are qual ities which are superficial ly disliked on the stage, in man , cowardice, any refusal to fi ght for a bel ief, in a woman , an incl ination towards the Cressid. 47

Through an interrelationship of his ei ght essential s, Anderson hoped to bring on stage a dramatic form that he fel t was needed in the modern American theatre. Through al l the el ements of theatre ,

Anderson put great demands upon the poetic playwr ight to achieve the vision that he had: a drama that would show man at his potential best and provide man with an inspiration to fu lfil that ideal •

. Summary

Anderson fel t that cynicism and despair permeated the arts in the post- war years of the early twentieth century. By reviving poetic drama and using Aristotelian gui del ines, it was Anderson ' s 27 idea to see theatre armed with a new purpose: to provide inspira­ tion to modern audiences as the poets of ancient Greece and the

Renaissance had done. The artists from the past and their audiences had a profound fa ith in themsel ves wh ich made tragedy possible in their poetry and drama .

Anderson thought theme shoul d provide a play with a central idea or image. Modern man , desp�te ever greater technological achievements, was spiri tual ly poor and needed themes that coul d inspire him through the power of representation that poetry and theatre could provide. Themes al so served as moral guides , according to Anderson , whi le providing new insights con cerning human nature; in this way the audience' s outlook was to be broadened.

Anderson aimed at lon gevity or llendurance" which was his test for a desirable effect of theme.

Anderson 's theory showed a great infl uence of Aristotle, espec i ally in regard to character and plot/structure. Anderson . often directly mentioned or paralleled Aristotle and his Poetics and used classical ly oriented dramatic elements and label s in his illustrations about playwriting, for, as he insisted, they µrovided the best examples. Anderson wrote plays using, in various ways and with varying degrees of success, the theory he set down . Critics and schol ars since then have studied, debated, and argued about

Maxwel l Anderson ' s theory and the effecti veness of his att mpts to put it into effect. FOOTNOTES

1 . Maxwel l Anderson , "The Arts as Motive Power," New York . Times, 17 October 1937, sec. 1 1, p. 1. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 4 11The Essence of Tragedy, 11 Off Broadwa : Essa s about the Theater , {New York: William Sloane Associates, Inc. , 1947 , p. 63. 5 11By Way of Preface: The Theatre as Rel igion," New York Times, 2 6 October 1941, sec. 9, p. 3. 6 11Poetry in the Theater," Off Broadw�, p. 48. 7 11A Note on Modern Poetry, " New Republ ic, 22 June 1921 , p. 113 . .

8 Ibid. 9 Ibid. , pp. 112-113. . 10 11one Future for American Poetry, 11 Dial , 31 May 1919, p • . 568 . 11 New Republ ic, op. cit., P• 113.

12 Ibid. 1 3 11Poetry in the Theater, " P· 53 . 14 New Republ ic, op . cit., P· 112. 15 11Poetry in the Theater, 11 op . cit. 16 Ibid. , p. 50. 17 "Yes, by the Eternal ," Stage, May 193 7, p. 51. 18 11Poetry in the The?ter, 1 1 op . cit., P· 48. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., p. 53. 29

21 see: Francis Abernethy , "Winterset : A Modern Reven ge Tragedy, " Modern Drama 7 (September 1964 ): 185-189. Jacob H. Adl er, "Shakespeare in Winterset," Educational Theatre Journal 6 (October 1954 ): 241-248 . Robert C. Roby, "Two Wor 1 ds: Maxwe11 Anderson 's Winterset ," College Engl ish 18(J anuary 1957): 195-202. These articles analyzed Winterset from the standpoint of Shakespearean and other classical el eme n ts that are seen to be within the pl ay. Yet another image was ra ised with rel igion: Samuel Kl iger , "Hebra ic Lore in Maxwel l An derson 's Winterset ," American Literature 18 (November 1946 ): 219-232. 22 11Poetry in the Theater ," op. cit. 23 Ibid. , pp. 5 3- 54 . 24 Ibid. , pp. 50-51 .

2 5 11The Essence of Tragedy, " O·ff Broadway, p. 5 7 . 26 Ibid. , pp. 5 7-:- 58. 27 Ibid. , p. 58. 28 1bid. , pp. 59- 60. 29 Ibid. , p. 59. 30 1bid. , p. 60. 31 Leo Gol den , Aristot l e's Poetics: A Transl�tion and Commentary for Students of Literature (Englewood Cl 1ffs , N.J. : P 68) rentice-Hall, Inc., 19 , p. 19. 32 Ibid. , p. 21. 33 1 bid. , p. 22. 34 , . 11The Essence of Tragedy," op. c i t. P· 59 35 Ibid. , p. 61. 36 1bid. , pp . 64 -6 5. /

3 7 • • . c i • , P 19 Leo Go1 den , op t 38 Ibid., p. 29. 39 ," PP · 51-52. 11Poetry in the Theater 30

40 New York Times , 26 October 194 1 , sec. 9 , p. 3. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid. 4 3 Ibid. 44 1 bid. 45 11Poetry in the Theater, " op . cit. , p. 52 . 4 6 11The Essence of Tragedy, " op . cit., p. 62. 47 New York Times , op. cit. , p. I & 3. CHAPTER III

ANALYSIS OF REVIEW CR ITI CISM

Procedure and Organ ization

This chapt er wi ll analyz e cont emporary theatre reviews from 1 93 0, 1933, and 1948 for the fi rst performances of Elizabeth the

Queen , Mary of Scotland, and Anne of the T housand Days , respecti vely.

For content analysis of the rev iews , Chapter III wi ll fol low th is

format and use thes e headings:

1) Poetry for the Modern Audience

2) Tragedy--Ar istotel ian Infl uences on Anderson 's Concepts of Character, Pl ot and Structure

3) Themes for the Modern Audience

To det ermine content analys is and to come to general conc lusions in

the ov erall summary of the chapt er the criteria referred to in

Chapter I (P. 9) will be used. Following the analysis of the

revi ews , there will be a short section that wi ll discuss Anderson 's

responses to reviewers in general .

Poetry for the Modern Audience

Eli zabeth the Queen

This play, written and produced in 1930, was Anderson 's first successful verse drama. It portrays the stormy rel ationship between Queen El izabeth and Lord Essex, the Essex rebel l ion, and the eventual impris onment and subsequent death of Essex.

The conments on An derson's verse in Eli zabeth were guarded 32

when rev i ewers gave positive judgments. Richard Dana Skinner,

wri ting in Commonweal, gave a sl ightly favorable passing reference 1 . to the anguage of the play after he fa ul ted Anderson for some

libert ies taken for dramat ic license:

Except for occasional cheap bl asphemies , this drama is one of the most di stinguished efforts in a season that has been al l too lean. It is di stinguished •••for the beauty of many passages in its di al ogue wh ich have a distinct Shakespearean fl avor.1

Skinner wa s the on e rev i ewer who came cl osest to praise of the verse 2 when he wrote that "many passages had beauty. 11 It was not ,

however , an en thusiastic en dorsement.

Mark Van Doren for the Nation made another comparison to the

cl assic past : " [An derson ] has wr itten with spl endor yet wi th tact,

with just en ough of the archa ic in hi s styl e to make us think of

Shakespeare yet wit hout that excess of it wh ich would prevent us

from apprec iating his pl ay as the work of a cont emporary. 113 Van

Doren then wen t on to mention An derson 's standing as a playwri ght :

"He is on e of the few pl aywr ights today who are gifted wi th rich 4 ton gues. 11 Ski nner and Van Doren , wi th inevitable comparison s to

Shakespeare, both admired Anderson for having att empted to wr · t e poetic drama.

On the other hand, Francis Fergusson in the Bookman dis lik ed what he cal led Anderson's "rel axed, bl ank verse, with a

5 there s good t i phrase or two from Marl owe. 11 Fergusson fel t wa poe c

T. S. El iot. El iot, wri ting , such as that by Ezra Pound an d

thans with the utmost F erg usson stated, had "studied the El i zabe 33

6 care. " Fergusson suggested that Anderson shoul d do likewise, then

the resul t could have proved beneficial : "[Anderson] mi ght work out

a language that fi tted his theme ; then we mi ght hope for something 7 genuinely important.11 George Jean Nathan in wr i ting for Judge

cal led for a "gl ow" in the language of a pl ay that retol d the rel a­

tionship between El i zabeth and Essex; this gl ow had to refl ect a

superior kind of wr i ting, and to �athan, An derson fel l short : "Mr.

Ander son manages to negotiate such wr i ting in on ly three scenes of

his play; for the voices of the actors are pitched to a poet ical 8 hope and wish that are never real ized� 11 Like Skinner and V?r1

Doren , Nathan profes�ed apprec iation for Anderson 's intent whi le he

faulted his exec ution:

That he started out to wr ite ·his p 1 ay as strai ght poet ic drama, I have a rather defi nite feel ing • ••that some\there al ong the line he ei t her lost his nerve--because of a bel ief that poet ic dr ama pret ty generally spel ls ruin

on Broadway-- or that some where al ong the same 11 line someone got to him and said, "Come, come, Max! I have a feel ing sti ll more definite. The pl ay that we see hardly p ersuades me as bei ng the man uscript that Anderson first dreamed of and fi rst wrote. 9

Mary of Scotland ; This secon d pl ay of An derson 's Tudor tri logy came in 1933

it is a portrayal of the return of Queen Mary to Scotland aft er many years exile in France. Mary encounters resistance from her people, has two ill-fated marriages , is the cause of civil war, and, in this version, is eventual ly brought down by the ma china tions of her rival , El i zabeth. At the en d as a pri soner of the Engl ish queen ,

Mary is executed . 34

Reviewers of this pl ay mentioned Anderson 's verse more often

in their comments and were more fa vorabl e to the verse, as a wh ol e.

· in the New York Times Brooks At k inson gave an en thusiastic response

to the verse in Mary: "It ha s restored the Engl ish language to its

highest estate as an instrument of lustrous beauty • If poetry

was the language of modern times , Mr . An derson and his actor s made 10 it so last ev ening by the beauty an-d bite of their address.11 In

Stage an unnamed writer wa s equ al ly laudatory : "There is little

doubt in our mind that Maxwel l An derso� has , in Mary of Scotland,

wri tten . the fin est drama of hi s gen erat ion, that he has restored 11 1 anguage to its hi gh ·estate in the theatre. 11 George Brandt in

Revi ew of Reviews contributed th is judgmen t to the verse of the

p lay: '" Mary of Scotland' demon strates the power and beauty of the

1 2 Engl ish language, and justifies the cause of romantic drama. 11

Other wr iters were more restra ined in their comments.

Richard Dana Skinner for Commonweal was mo stly agreeabl e, but again

he raised limitations:

He has al so written a poem, both in the literal sense that he has brought the fl ame of the poet 's insi ght to bear upon a human struggl e of ep ic proport ions. If I am per­ mitted to exc ept the last act , I should be incl ined to say that this is the fi nest work of poetic el oquence yet pro- 13 duced by an American dr amat ist.

To Ski nner the play had very strong qual ities in its lan guage, yet he found the last act did not possess the spark found earl ier in the play. Whether this was du e to the poetry excl usi vely or some ·other 35 aspect of the play was not made clear, but the context of his remarks seemed to indicate a lack of an important el ement in the verse of the play.

In Vanity Fair George Jean Nathan al so expressed reser­ vations ab�ut An derson as a poet . Still, in comparison . to other playwri ghts, Nathan fel t An derson had attained a higher level of achievement:

For Anderson , though he is hardly t�1e lush poet that cer­ tain cormlentators would have us bel ieve, is at least more expert in the use and facile rhythm of words than most of his American dramat ic cont emporaries and, in addition, has . 14 a touch of imagination superior to the majority of them. Nathan iiked the idea of a poeti c and "inspired drama , 1 . 1 and he fel t that Anderson aimed this play in that general direction. However,

Nathan stated, its execution fel l short : "His play aspires to the hei ghts , but the escalator of his blank verse that essays to carry it to the mountain top periodically lets out disturbing little 15 creaks. 11 Despite some skepticism on his part, Nathan thought

Anderson was a wel l-meaning, if fl awed, poet- playwright .

Anne of the Thousand Days

The 1948 play, Anne of the Thousan d Days , the last of the

Tudor tri logy, portrayed Henry VIII's wooing of and marriage to Anne

Bol eyn , the split of Engl and from the Church of Rome, Henry ' s di vorce from Catharine of Aragon , Thomas More's martyrdom, El i zabeth's birth, Anne's fall from grace after her plotting and fa ilure to bear a mal e heir, and her eventual imprisonment and execution. 36

By 1948 an 11Anderson ian 11 tradition had been establ i shed;

revi ewers had come to see Anderson as being a verse or "poetic"

playwri ght. From the 1930 's on , Anderson had written the three

plays discussed here and ot hers, al so in verse: Winterset, �

Largo, Night Over Taos, Val ley Forge. Anderson had become more or

less a known quantity; revi ewers had devel oped their own preferences

and disagreements with this dramat ist during these years.

Reviewers were not un i versally enthusiastic in their

assessments of Anderson 's verse in Anne. Still, some reviewers

complimented Anderson 's intent in wri ting poet ic dra ma . "As Jsual 16 Mr. An derson had pitched his drama hi gh, 11 wrote Brooks Atk inson.

John Mason Brown in a col umn for the Saturday Review of Literature

made a conment that attested to Anderson 's nobl e ambition: "It can-

not be den ied that [An derson 's] aims are of the highest. His is a

splendid, lonely courage. The theatre of which he dreams, is the 17 theatre at its nobl est. 11 Favorabl e comment was restricted to a

recognition of Anderson 's aims in writing verse for his drama rather

than pointing out any feature of the language of the play that

revi ewers fel t was outstan ding.

Instead, the revi ewers as a whol e ev inced ov erall disap-

pointment with the verse Anderson wrote. Atkinson, in another

article for the Times cal led attention to Anderson 's ability and willingness to experiment: Over the years he has experimented with styles of verse that are acceptabl e to modern audiences unaccustomed to grand sounds and subl ime images . The styl e of verse he 37

has sett� ed on as the most satisfactory is bewildering to me. Until I have seen the play in print I never know what speeches are prose and what are verse; and even when I see them in print the verse seems to me distinguis hed chi efly for its sel f-consci ousness. 1 8

John Gassner was an exception to the general lack of

revi ewer enthusiasm for the verse in Anne. Gassner focused on

Anderson 's intent and gave credit to An derson 's past efforts;

whi le not exactly praising Anderson_ for the verse in this particular

work, Gassner did attempt to give a bal anced analysis of the play's

verse. In Forum Gassner wrote: "Once more Mr. Anderson gives [the

play and its characters] literate language, fine bursts of 1 9 eloquence. " Gassner conti nued with a positive description of

Anderson even though he found the playwright had limitations:

If you do not set yoursel f exalted standards of poetry, which Mr. Anderson has never really pretended to meet , although he has made val iant effort to do so, you will even acknowledge that the author of Elizabeth the Queen , Mary of Scotland, and the ne\-J play is almost singl ehand­ edly hol ding the fort for poetic drama. 20 T� is special status Gassner ascribed to Anderson sterruned from comparison to cont emporary poets who had tried writing plays:

••• it has been plain that [Anderson ] is the on ly prac­ titioner who has been abl e to make [poet ic drama] prevail in the midtown area because he knows how to create theatre whereas bett er poets than he who have a fl air for the dramati c don 't quite have the knack. MacLeish, Kreymborg, El iot, have al l tried to give their �on- siderable tal ent to the stage, but on ly Murder 1n the Cathedral proved stron g enough t� hol d the interest of strictly theatre audiences. Unl ike the �heatre of th� Gre , zabethans, and the age of Lou1 XIV, ours 1s a eks El i � 1 theatre of movement rather than of sound.

The thrust of Gassner 's analysis demonstrated that Anderson was a 38

man of the theatre and a superior playwright in comparison with

better poets who had tried but had not adapted wel l to the theatre.

This review by John Gassner presented a more substantive picture of

Anderson as a poet and playwri ght than other revi ews that merely reflected a simple positive or negative position about Anderson .

John Mason Brown in the Saturday Review provided perhaps the clearest representat ion of the ov erall dis appointment reviewers had with Anderson 's verse for Anne. Brown expressed disenchantment with

Anderson's verse when he asked the following rhetorical questions:

Why is it then , notwithstanding single speeches of interest in such of his other p 1 ays as "The Masque of Kings," "Val ley Forge, 11 or "K ey Largo, 11 that Mr. Anderson does not wear wel l as a poetic dramat ist? Why is it that a good many of us approach his pl ays with less anticipa­ tion than we on ce did and sit through them with less pleasure? Why is it that , even when as in "Anne of the Thousand Days " he is wr i ting more tightly and strongly than he has written of recent years, we feel no real enthusiasm?22

Brown intimated a decl ine in est eem for Anderson 's verse compared to the reception of his earl ier work. Specul ating further , Brown posed still more rhetorical questions that addressed possibl e reasons for the lack of enthusi asm: Is it because we are ontothe trick? Is it because the horrid conviction is boun d to overtake us that what Mr. Anderson paints as poetry, and his a�to� s s�eak �s such, sort of s1ng1n wh 1 ch very is not poetry at all but a � l� simp le thoughts are ornately state?? Or 1 � lt because, Mr. An derson raises our hopes as high as his own-- and then leaves us hoping?23 39

Sunmary

In his dramat ic theory Anderson stated that poetic drama

.s hould be brought to the popular stage again. He wished to see the

emotion- arousing and inspirat ional qual ities of ill1Tlortal poetry

coupled with the irrmedi acy of the theatre. Not since the early

nineteenth century had verse appealed to theatre audiences . In

1930 , 1 933, and 1948 Anderson wrote three commercial ly successfu l

verse plays.

The verse in the pl ays was not received with great enthu­ siasm, however. Except for Mary of Scotland, the verse Ande· son wrote was not judged to be of exceptional qual ity. Al though the reaction to the verse of the pl ays wa s mixed, Anderson was credited with having made the attempt to revive the poet ic drama. In most revi ewers' minds, however, Anderson di d not attain the poet ic and dramatic hei ghts to which he aspired-- that of cl assical Greek and

El izabethan drama. In comparison to some cont emporary and more accompli shed poets, he was judged to be the superior pl aywright .

Al though some appreciation was expressed for what Anderson was attempt ing, most revi ewers' expectat ions concerning verse apparently went unful fi lled by Anderson . 40

Tragedy--Ari s totel ian Infl uences on Anderson 's Concepts of Character, Plot and Structure

This secti on of Chapter III wi ll analyze revi ews of

Eli za bet h the Queen , Mary of Scotland, and Anne of the Thousand Days

for their criticism of An derson 's use of character, pl ot and struc­

ture. Revi ewers ' perception of the tragic potential pertaining to

Anderson 's main characters wi ll be the ma in concern of this section.

Character

El izabeth the Queen

· New York Times reviewer Brooks Atk inson gave this enthu­ siastic description of the characters El izabeth and Lord Essex:

Mr. An derson has portrayed El izabeth as a woman stormy of temperamen t, torn between natural tenderness and the bru­ tal ity of office, sharp of ton gue , quick-witted, decisive and wi se. She can curse like a fi s hmon ger 's wi fe. She is bl unt and precise in her State judgment. As personal for­ tunes turn against her she faces the worl d wi th bitter fortitu de •••Essex is mettl e worthy of a queen-­ 24 audac ious , proud with a great capacity for an ger •

From Atk inson 's viewpoint An derson devel oped El i zabeth into a stron g character: she has womanly tendencies, yet is ruthless in her state­ craft . Essex seemed somewhat less interesting, al though Atk inson found him fu lly devel oped in oppos ition to El izabeth. Richard Dana

Skinner in Commonweal analyzed El i zabeth and al so gave her the edge in dramatic int erest :

The author has not attempted to be too closely historical and has therefore managed to give a portrait of El izabeth in the terms of her battle between love for the considerably younger Lord E � sex an d . her love of the throne itself •••no matter how interest mg the study of 41

Essex' s character mi ght be, it is the queen who dominates the play at every moment •••She is neither loveable nor sympathet ic, yet on e manages eas ily to understan d her and to realize the strange an d fatal atmosphere of intrigue and uncertainty with wh 1 \ �J the throne of Engl and was mf surrounded at that ti •

Skinner mentioned tr.c primary confl ict between �l izabeth and Essex--love they had for each other and love they both had for power, each mutually exclusive:

The fur ious jealousy of the queen rloes not permit her a singl e instant of en joyment when she is wi th her lover. She is not on ly jealous of his affections, but even more deeply resentful of his lust for power. She would like to destroy him as a menace to her own · authority yet , because he helps her cl ing to her fl eeting youth and because his love for her is strangel y real , she needs him too inten­ sely to be ab.l e to gi ve way utterly to her jealousy and resentment. 26

Skinner then outlined the other side of the confl ict in this way :

Essex, for his part , is equally torn . In the play, he is never conscious of how much he real ly owes to the queen for the opportunities she has given him. He is largely carried away by the personal popularity he enjoys with the Engl ish peopl e •••He has dr eams of empire in terms of warfare and conquest. He accuses El i zabeth of womanl y cowardice in att empt ing to keep her kingdom in peace. Yet she has a genuine fascination for him wh ich he cannot throw off. He is ev i dently fu lly aware of her increasing age, but her mind hol ds him as keen ly fascinated as if she were sti ll in her first youth.27

Skinner found character devel opment and motive to have been fully presented by Anderson in Elizabeth.

Stuart Beach in Theatre wrote that the play had "the most plausi ble re- creation of the El i zabeth-Essex affair that I have 28 seen. " Beach apprec iated the "real ity" of Anderson 's characters:

"[Anderson 's] peopl e tal k an d behave like human beings and not like 42

players act ing in a pl ay. There is no ranting, no grand manner , no 29 histrionics, no bombast. 11

Mark Van Doren focused his commentary on the ob stacles that

were apparent to him in recreating dramatical ly bel ievabl e charac­

ters for historical drama. In Van Daren 's opi nion such a task pre­

sented mon umental ob stacles:

The pl aywright who goes to history for his characters must solve on e probl em before he sol ves any other--the problem of how these characters are to be made conv incing •••the audience al ready knows them, or thinks it knows them, and wh i le this might be seen to be a hel p it is ac;:tual ly a handicap •••the autho'r cannot create with a free hand, he cannot begin with nothing. He begins with peopl e of whom we long ago formed some picture in our minds, to whom we have attached a certain importance. 30

Unl ike Atkinson, Skinner, and Beach, Van Doren seemingl y ignored

Anderson 's ac hievement in surmounting the obstacles with which he

was so concerned. Further , in outl ining the probl ems of historical recreation s, Van Doren mentioned audience preconception s:

[Hi storic peopl e] are sacred to us in the sense that we have conceptions of them which it is dangerous or ridi- cul ous to viol ate •••the playwri ght , in other words, is havi ng to match his picture wi th our own , and since no two persons see �'li th the same ey es , he is attempting the impossible.31

Van Doren posed the risks that were inherent in creating dramatic

characters from history ; as to Anderson 's success or fa ilure at

creating such characters, nothing wa s said.

Richard Dana Ski nner found tragic el ements in the struggl e between El izabeth and Essex: s ve We thus have a dual struggl e on both sides , th� lo ling of power in on e form or another supremely control 43

both El izabeth and Essex and tearing them apart wh ile per­ sonal devot ion draws them together. This is the seed of tragedy as Mr. Anderson has written it. It is tragedy in the truest sen se of a culmination wh ich grows out of the inevitabl e characters of these two people. One or the other must conquer completely. 32

Ski nner ill ustrated the decisive turning point of the pl. ay and El izabeth's ultimate recognition of Essex:

When El izabeth refuses to make [Essex] king consort, he threaten s her. This threat opens her eyes at last to the real nature of the confl ict between them •••If ev er suicide of a soul wa s portrayed on the stage, it is the moment when El izabeth sends Essex to his death, knowing that in doing so she is killing everything in hersel f except her on e determination to r�le.33

To Skinner, Maxwel l Anderson wrote a pl ay with tragic characters.

In Drama Barrett H. Cl ark emphasized the dimensional ity of

the main characters in the pl ay and their tragic stature: "Essex

becomes not a pitiable fool , but a tragic fi gure, and El izabeth not 34 a heartless tyrant but a sort of superior Cleopatra. 11 This was

only a passing reference and did not match the full scal e analysis

�of Skinner 's revi ew.

Mary of Scotland

A conman trait among some rev i ewers who discussed character devel opment in Mary of Scotland wa s to address the dramat ic poten­ tial of Mary , the historical personal ity. Stark Young in the New

Republ ic saw Queen Mary as hav ing great possibil ities for dramati c treatment and devel opmen t in a pl ay: The Mary Stuart that Mr. Anderson writes about he wel l knows was a person most complex--tal l, wi tty, tang� ed within sex in the manner pecul iar to the Stuarts; impetuous, 44

often peremptory , generous • • • She had a good brain, not only ardent and agreeab le, but stuffed wi th diplomacy. He knows ho� she plotted, as any Stuart had to do , and that some of her last years were haunted by the fear lest they shoul d make away with her b_y poison and destroy her chance to enjoy a martyr's light . 35

Euphenia Van Renssel aer Wy att in Cathol ic World al so commented on

the historical Mary and \'/hat she offered the playwright : "Mr .

Anderson had chosen wisely one of the most fascinating of al l ladies

over whom had descended such a cloud of my stery that everyon e is 36 free to their [sic] own int erpret at ion.11 Miriam Moth erwel l in

Stage likewise speculated on the my sti que this queen held for

Anderson and others over many years :

When Maxwel l Anderson undertook to dramatize Mary Stuart he took on a controversy wh ich has fascinated rea ders of history for more tha.n three centuries. Mary's legend is natura l tabl oi d material--personal beauty, fascinat ion, aristocracy, intri gue, the ri valry of two jealous women , reckless love, murder, peril and pursuit, and finally death. If Mary had not been final ly beheaded s he mi ght today be forgotten . But her death wrote the fifth act of a play which Shakespeare could hardl y have matched for color, dramat ic excitement, and pathetic appeal. 3 7

It was to such mat eri a 1 that poets and playwrights before Anderson had been attracted. Motherwi ll demonstrated that legends of young women have been favorites of writers and that the 1 egend of Mary

Stuart would prove no exception: "The legend of Mary has in it the 38 mater ial for a great play. 11

Motherwel l al so recogn ized the creation of Anderson the playwri ght in revealing the historical character: "This Mary is an interpretation on the part of Anderson , the historian; it is a 45

39 creat ion on the part of An derson , the dramatist.11 Motherwel l con­

tinued with a descr iption of An derson 's re- creation of Mary :

[Anderson 's] Mary is a woman who mi ght have lived, and who-- to the best knowl edge of us modern bourgeois mortal s-­ might have been a queen in the Renai ssance, and mortal rival to that greatest of Renaissance queens, El izabeth. Her famous charm was not the proj ection of sex appeal , such as our current mov ies display as the compel ling motive in human affairs. It was compounded of many qual i- ties. It incl uded intelligence, . and shrewdness, an d intuition of the mot ives and des ires of her adversaries; even Master John Knox was for more :han a moment on e of her unwilling slaves . 40

Anderson 's Mary was a successful combination of history/ legen d and

dramatic pl ausibil ity in Motherwel l 's view. The result was a fu ll

dimensional and bel ievable character: "Mr. Anderson has woven many

strands of Mary's character together •••pr ide of language, habit

of authority, gentle breeding, womanly intuition, statesmanlike

insight , kindly affection for al l, an d wayward impulsiveness of 4 feel ing. 11 1

Joseph Wood Krutch in the Nation di d not compare Mary's

h istor ical background with the play's central character . Primarily,

Krutc h conmented on the interpretation Anderson chose and the

resultant direction of the play. Krutch stated that the play had

tragic dimension because of Mary's character : rily a • ••wh ether [Anderson] woul d regard her pri ma as woman who happened to be a queen or pri marily as a queen who happen ed to be a woman ; and on ce that choice was made, the whol e character of the drama was determined • he chose the fi r st al ternative , and "Mary of Scotl and" • • • becomes, therefore, the romantic tragedy of a woman who l oved and lost •••on e does , to be sure, c�tch �n occa­ so sional hint of the fact that the fa te of emp ires is al woman who made the at stake •••Mary is before al l a 46

mistake of refusing love when love was offered •••But she is the vict im of one of those moments of weakness which constitute what the ancients cal led a "tragic gui 1t. 1142

Krutch interpreted Mary as a tragic character, who pays with her life because of shortsi ght edness and weakness.

Aft er he gave Mary a build up to tragic signifi cance, Krutch then questioned the whol e idea of history as portrayed in drama.

Even tragedy no lon ger seemed rel evant to him. History, Krutch con­ ten ded, muddied Anderson 's intent , and tragedy came across as irrel evant:

••� as I watched "Mary of Scotland" unfol d itsel f I could not but ask , "Why hi story?" To a story of the sort Mr. Anderson has to tel l the associations inevi tably connected with the struggl e between El i zabeth and Mary are almost whol ly irrelevant. No matter how det ermined he seems to use them on ly to give wei ght and di gnity to the characters, they get in the way. Mary's private tragedy cannot be detached from' publ ic affairs, and publ ic affairs get no adequat e recognition. This is not , one says to oneself, the story of Mary of Scotland, and why , one asks, should anyone preten d that it is? ••• Aristotle bel i eved that only kings and queens could have personal stories worth the tel ling, and Shakespeare's cont emporaries had at least the feel ing that robes and sceptres were the fitting adjuncts to a heroic character.43

Further, Krutch ma intained, tragedy in any form was not rel evant to the theatre of the twentieth century; Anderson 's play looked anachronistic:

That sense [of tragedy] we no lon ger have, and it is because Mr. An derson counts so heavily upon it that his play cannot whol ly shake off its sl ight ly archaic air. The idea of kingship has lost its magic. �hara�ters do not automatically grow in stat ure when a titl e is con­ ferred upon them and the story of a broken hea�t does not seem more signifi cant because that heart was filled wi. th royal blood. Mary's story as a woman is no more than the 4 7

story of any other woman her equal in intel ligence or sen­ sibility, and the trappings have become no more than merely trappings. 44

·Krutch's centra l contention was that the historical material upon which An derson based his story made the play look dat ed and super­ ficial .

Edith J. R. Isaacs in Theatre Arts Monthly stat�d that

El izabeth's scenes were static, had' no dramat ic interest: "The play­ wright gives [El izabet h] no vari�ty, no change of emotional qual ity, or almost none, which results in transferring the basilisk qual ity 45 that shoµl d be the surface of her performance to its spirit.�

Cy Caldwel l in New Outl ook bel ittled the play and the main character completely:

Boldly kicking sour-visaged history out of the back door, Mr. Anderson has gal lantly ushered into the Alvin Theatre a queen fashioned to his own ideas of what a queen ought to be, even if she wasn 't. Mr. Anderson 's Mary of Scotland ••• is a brave, sweet , lovely numbskull, trusting, patriotic, pure in heart. 46

Cal dwel l described El izabeth as being "the sour, vicious, imperious 4 7 woman who was Engl and's queen. 11

Anne of the Thousand Days

In their eval uations of Anderson 's character development in

Anne of the Thousand Days , revi ewers tended to use superl atives.

Henry and Anne were very instrumental in shaping his tory; apparently many revi ewers were taking this into account. As a result, revi ewers tended to analyz e the ma in characters of this play from historical comparison s. 48 Joseph Wood Krutch found the characters to be very com­

pel l ing and the best el ement in the pl ay because "a certain naked 48 fierceness in the characters themsel ves is made real . 11 Histori­ cal ly, Krutch maintained, such characters were justifi ed in Anne:

"Engl ishmen and Engl ishwomen ha d in that day an almost Latin tem­ pestuousness of soul which they di d not entirely lose unt il the eight eenth century was under way, and Mr . Anderson has captured more 49 of it than in any of his previous hi storical plays.11 Krutch thought Anderson created characters and atmosphere comparabl e to the time of Henry and Anne; these characters were cut from rich material ; and this was a chal l en ge to the playwright :

They loved and hated, they destroyed each other and they destroyed themsel ves with a passionate recklessness wh ich one must bel ieve in if on e is to understan d how history could ever have happen ed. The dramat ist who would make the personages bel ievable must ma ke them imposing, terrify ing even,.\ rather than \'/hat is common ly cal 1 ed "sympathetic. 11 5u

Krutch wrote of An derson 's characters as mi ghty forces, large in stature. He used stron g adj ecti ves in his assessments of these characters.

Brooks Atk inson found Anderson 's Henry and Anne as having tragic stature. Anne especial ly fi tted this description:

Anne is a woman of courage, independence, ambi � ion and few scruples. Henry is sel fish, ingen uously sanct1mon1o_ us, brutish and opportunistic •••Al though Henry has a number of misgivings, Anne is the pne who fu lfills_ Mr. Anderson's con ception of tragedy. 5

Atkinson then dwel t on some of the consequences and the results that th i s union of two hi gh-powered characters had: 49

Since Henry is a king, his amours have terribl e conse­ quences. Innocent peopl e are crushed; a few die· others are executed; ministers topple; the whol e country seethes with anger. Anne is a person of keen mind with great capacity for ten dern ess and loyal ty ; and Henry is the master of his profession and understands the con­ sequences of what he does. Al though they love each ot her in a kind of tragic al ternation, and love ardently, they are not innocent lovers. For the br ief liaison of Anne and Henry whi ch gave Engl and its greatest queen , is monstrous and horribl e amidst the corruption of a wanton and cynical court . 52

In another Times revi ew Atk inson saw al most god- like results in

Anderson 's character devel opment in his ov erall view of the play:

" •••the drama as a whol e is a passionate chronicle of heroic

peopl e who move in a barbaric worl d of cynacism, indul gence and

153 promethean [sic] aud�city. 1

Reviewers Krutch and Atkinson stated that Anderson 's Henry

and Anne were al most legen dary or superhuman with tragic ov ertones .

Other rev i ewers thought that Anderson made these characters, above al l, human , as is stated in this unsigned rev iew for Newsweek :

"Hi story �as suppl ied the facts , and in us ing them Anderson is less

interested in the royal coupl e 's offstage impact on a nation than in f inding words and mot ives that will present them in a more sym­ 4 1 5 in direct pathet ic light as lovers and human bei ngs. 1 This was

stressed contradiction to Krutch and Atkinson 's findings that

••• imagery. This "imposing •••te rrifying promethe�n [sic]"

, with historic a l Newsweek rev i ewer saw living human beings fi rst shifts and con sequences second. 50

Still' other reviewers looked for something more than the obvious theatrical el ements in the play. Gil bert w. Gabriel in

·Theatre Arts sunmed up Anne as being essential ly honest and uncompl icated:

Mr. Anderson throws little chi ffon upon his heroine's essential character. She wears no ceinture of chastity to start with, nor wi ll she mistake her hand-wrangl ed crown for a halo anywhere throughout the play. She is laid out in honest humor on �n analyst 's tabl e, and the poet who peeks and eaves drops on the sessions sympathizes with her all the more for her unabashed bol dness and her honest fl esh. 55 - ·

Euphen ia Van Ren ssel aer Wy att al so not ed aspects of character devel­ opment aside from larger- than- life attributes. She found Henry to be a wel l-crafted character ; he was portrayed as a man compelled by a woman he loved to act against his better judgment: Anderson 's Henry is not just the gl utton for money and lechery he was to become. This Henry sti ll has the per­ sonal charm, the pol itical tact and intuitive sense of psychol ogy he was to pass on to Anne's da ughter. Anderson adds a dry humor. His Henry al so real izes the cost to his people of his seizing their Church. He fu lly appreciates the integrity of such men as Sir Thomas More, Bishop John Fisher and Prior Houghton , and hesitates over their death warrant until Anne exacts it.56

Revi ews such as those by Wy att and Gilbert emphasi zed the human qual ities with which Anderson endowed his Anne and Henry.

Yet some fault was attributed to Anne as a character , although this was not due merely to Anderson 's execution. The fol lowing colTITlent by Joseph Wood Krutch best exemrlified any unfavor- abl e judgmen t about Anderson 's representation of Ann e:

Anne must not be merely a pathet ic victim but al so unconquerable and ruthless •••bu t on the stage she seems less impos ing than Mr. An�erson drew her. The �on­ ception is made to seem less El i zabethan , more V1c_ tor1an. 51

And from the standpoint of a critic this remains unfor­ tunate, even though it may possibly be true that a contem­ porary audience woul d rather have both Anne and the Qthers made understandable in its terms than in their own . 5 1

Sumnary

Unl ike the cormientary they ma de about his dramatic verse,

revi ewers displayed a marked consistency in favorable remarks about

Anderson 's character deve1 opment in_ the tri 1 ogy p1 ays . Rev i ewers

found the characters of El izabeth, Esstx, Mary Stuart , Anne Boleyn , ' and Henry to be full characterizations that are rich in motivation,

in the actions taken , in consequences that befel l the characters, and in subsequent history. Negat ive reviewer comment showed doubts about recreating historical characters and Anderson 's efforts in this vein. To such reviewers tragedy and Anderson 's att empts at wri ting it seemed futile. History became more important to revi ewers with the appearance of each new play in the trilogy. In

Eli zabeth his tory was seen as part of the backgroun d, with Mary much review corrmentary discussed Mary the historic person , and finally revi ewers of Anne focused on how Anne and Henry were responsibl e for much rel igious and social disruption. Some reviewers of each of the p·lays cl aimed the main characters attained a degree of tragic dimen­ sion .and fl aw due to mi staken courses of act ion. These reviewers stated that the tragic significance that An derson 's characters possessed refl ected the classical tragic forms, which were often assumed rather than actually spel led out. The strong endorsemen t revi ewers gave Anderson in this aspect of his playwriting attested 52

to the near success he had in creating characters in the manner he

proposed in his dramatic theory.

Plot and Structure

El i zabet h the Queen

In the New Y ork Times Brooks Atk inson wrote favorable conr­

mentary on Eli zabeth the Queen 's structure. He stated Anderson was

not excessive in his effects:

••• Maxwel l Anderson 's unassert ive "El i zabeth the Queen " is a more symmetrical piece of pl aywriting,· it is the sort of drama that requi res artistic sponsorship •••Mr . Anderson has made no attempt to wh ip his audience into submission by employing the bastanado of fl amboyant

m � 8 _ . el o drama 5

Atkinson al so felt that Anderson respected his audience and its

intel ligence in his use of content: "Intention ally or not , he has

· written for audiences discerning en ough to perceive intagl io

beaut ies . When a playwright writes in that inbred styl e he 59 estranges himsel f from most producers." Here again Anderson was

placed in · a special position far above most playwr ights of the time.

Stark Young in the New Republic fel t the pl ay was not ham­

pered by any hi storica 1 obstacles: "So far as hi story goes , the

play walks freely, as by al l precedent in drama and pri nciple in art

1160 it has every right to do. Young stat ed that the p 1ausibi1 i ty of ting ty : the play was limited on ly by Anderson 's playwri abili "How rtion is the far that is a dangerous freedom and di sto artist's that al l there is to b usiness: he can do what he can do and is 6 1 it. 11 Young 's eval uation attested to Anderson 'a tal ent as an 53

arranger of incidents in the plot of El izabeth and in the manipula­

tion of the dramat ic setting: " •••there is some deft management

in the situations, which is to say t�ere are sequences in the drama­

tic motivations that are hi ghly effective, exciting and wel l­ 62 emphasized. 11 Otis Chatfiel d-Tayl or in Outlook thought Anderson

built up his plot well, even though his beginn ing initially seemed

unpromi sing: "After a pretty ••• slow beginning £.1 izabeth the Queen builds in stren gth and intensity up to a final act that is 63 nothing short of gl orious. 11 Francis· Fergusson found Anderson 's

play to have a wel l- devel oped plot and structure , especial ly ·)ne

portion:

Mr. Anderson showed great ingenuity in some of the scenes, especial ly in the on e in the secon d act where El izabeth betrays Essex •••In the mere plot or story of this scen e Mr . An derson ev inces genuinely first- rate qual ities. He has cl arity and a mas� ery of situation: the scenario is a bri lliant success. 4 This represented the range of support ive comment Anderson received

from rev i ewers to the plot an d structure devel opmen t of Eli zabeth.

George Jean Nathan proved very unent husiastic about the plot

and structure of the play. There was a lack of overall dramatic excitement according to Nathan : "The play is interesting during its first act , somewhat less so in its second, and-- save for a wel l contrived scen e-- hardly at al l interesting in its last act. I t begins in rather fine color , but thereafter gradually peters

65 out ... 54

Barrett H. Cl ark compared the play to tragedy; the plot, he

stated, had similar characteristics :

• ••Th e first part of the An derson play is not much more than an ably presented preparation for a splendid and

glowing last act, wh ich borders on hi gh tragedy •••we are suddenly confronted wi th the mean ing of the who le thing, precisely as we real ize in life that the haphazard episodes that went before are part of some larger scheme that are used to call fate or destiny.66

Although Cl ark lik ed the play's construction better than did Nathan,

Clark wrote that the play was not sufficient to be full tragedy in

the Shakespearean sense: For Eli zabeth the Queen , however honest an att empt an ! however impressive in its last moments , lacks that logical and inevitable on rush that bel on gs to al l tragedy in its most perfect and sati sfying form • • • you \·ti 11 see that the modern pl ay is too del iberate, too planned and calcu­ lated, wh i le with Shakespeare whatever there may be of del i beration and cal culation seems to bel on g not .to the situation he imagined and proj ected. Where Mr . Anderson arranges his effects, Shakespeare stands aside and lets them have their tempestuous way. 67

In Cl ark 's est imat ion An derson was too obvious in plot and incident

arrangement in comparison to Shakespeare, who could seemingly make a

play run on its own motion.

Mary of Scotland "The great achievement of Mr . Anderson , 11 wrote Richard Dana

Skinner, "is in br inging humanity, warmth, credibility, humor, pathos and rich illusion to a chain of events, that might eas ily 68 have become col d and lifel ess in the theatre . 11 Skinner was i mpressed by Anderson 's ability to take historical material and turn i t into a play with a free- fl owing plot line and structure. 55

Euphenia Van Rensselaer Wy att was equally enthusias tic: "Mary of

Scotland has beautiful ly definite construction. The backgroun d and . the famous pe rsonages stan d cl early . drawn but never obstruct the 69 inexorable action.11 To Ski nner and Wy att the play was abl e to

move and was not hampered by obstac les inherent in the material with which An derson worked.

Miriam Motherwel l sumned up· the story of the play and showed

how An derson made El i zabeth destroy Mary :

Here are made cl ear Mary's position. as next in succession to the En gl ish throne, the complication of the rel igious issue, the poi itical need for marriage and an heir; and through it al l El izabeth's particular brand of states­ craft , which does al l things by indirection. Here the plot is plotted: El i zabeth is not to destroy Mary ; Mary is to be cozened into destroying hersel f. 70

Anderson , in Motherwel l 's view, was judged to have been very profi- cient in keeping his plot from bogging down into detail because of the complexity of events portrayed. Rather , Motherwel l saw that

Anderson was adept in his plot progression for this play:

Mr. An derson moves swiftly over the remainder of the story-- the uprising of Mary's outraged subj ects (with Elizabeth in virtual command of operat ions); Mary's defeat at Dunbar and Bot hwel l 's escape ; Mary's virtual imprison­ ment in Carl isle Castle, and (surely apocryphal ) the confrontation of the two rival s, and their mut ual the strands of istory are kept defiance. Throughout , � . fairly clear--to a surprising degree, l � on e :ons � ders the intricacy of this most intricate of medieval lntr1 gues. I t is one of Mr. An derson 's achievements to have pre­ serv in al l the ri gor us lim tatio s o dramatic ed, with ? � � �1 structure , the illusion of h1s tory ln act1on.

William Rose Benet in Saturday Review of Literature wrote a very strong endorsement of An derson ; Benet stat ed that in Anderson 56

72 "one coul d perceive the poet . 11 "That is why I think that Anderson 73 may wel l bec ome the best playwri ght we have, 11 Benet continued.

Then Ben et compared Anderson to Eugene O'Neill. Anderson was judged

the superior playwri ght in use of play construction and as a poet ;

O 'Neill showed greater depth of psychol ogical motivat ion and in

imaginative use of theatrical conventions. In his eval uation of the play Benet analyzed Anderson 's ability to arrange his plot from complex biographical and historical materi al :

As a · good playwright-- and no playwright today has a bette-· sense of structure than he-- his business was to carve moving drama out . of [Mary's] life, and in my op inion he has done it. He has seized upon ev ery dramatic possi­ bility within the compass of the sequence of ep isodes he chose, he has given us much of the feel ing of the times , he has characterized sal iently, he has brought humor to bear in the interl udes fr om tragedy. And he has not unrav­ el led knot by knot the coil of state affairs, if he has here and there taken liberties with history, if he has over and again modern ized speech, I for one do not hol d it against him. 74

Benet fel � Anderson gave this play much life and the result was

II quite remarkable for the modern theatre: . . . he has return ed to the drama something of the magnifi cance it possessed in El i zabethan times-- has don e this, and hel d a modern New York audience with it

· · n ight after night. No inconsiderable ach1evemen t • ,. JS T o B ene t ,

Maxwel l Anderson in this close-knit drama "attained great stature

11 76 with his considerable playwriting s k 1'11 s.

However , Mary of Scotland al so received its share of nega- t i ve conment for its plot and structural devel opment. Skinner took 57

issue with the last act of the play which he found structurally weak, thus diminishing the impact of the first and secon d acts •

. "The last act," Skinner wrote, "suffers from sel f-consciousness translated into a curious att itude of historical sel f-esteem on the 77 part of the two queens, Mary an d El i zabeth. 11 The last act ,

Skinner's review stated, was reduced from a "woman- to-woman struggl e" to a duel of rhetoric and - prophecy. Each solemnly 78 declaims about her position in history yet to be written.11 To

Skinner this reduced the play to a form .of di dact icism that was too obvious in intent and execution ; the play's whol e ill usion we � thus defeated:

We are tol d what we shoul d think-- that Mary conquers in defeat, and that El izabeth, throug h a consciously created legend, wi ll be said to have governed Engl and. This breaks the il lusion, so expertly created up to this point, that we are privy to history in the ma k ing. It makes us sudden ly conscious that we are merely seeing history re­ created. 79 The constructi on of the play wa s good up to that point; then, according to Skinner, the initial drive was defl ated by the final scenes.

Skinner had detected weaknesses earl ier in the play where

Anderson found it necessary to condense historical material to fit h is particul ar dramatic context . The El izabeth and Lord Burghl ey sed scenes were faulted by Ski nner as being "l itt 1 e more than conden across as .. These scenes , therefore, came exp1 anatory mat eri a 1 . so d being hurried: "Plans and pl ots spring fu ll-fledge into 58

El i zabeth's mind which, in human terms , would take days or weeks to

1181 germinate and devel op.

Anne of the Thou sand Days

The historical events Maxwel l Anderson wrote of · in Anne

spanned centuries. John Gassner focused on this when he analyzed

Anderson 's use of plot and structure in rel ation to the events that surrounded Henry and Anne:

Anne of the Thousand Da s retel ls the familiar story of Henry VIII and Anne Bol eyn , hi s· secon d queen and the mother of El i zabeth--their passionate affair wh ich changed the course of history, cut Engl and adrift from the Churc� of Rome, ul timately made Engl and the empire that super­ seded continental Spain and determined the destinies of t hree-quarters of the worl d for more than three centuries.82

Gassner demon strated that Anderson \'/as adept at handl ing such far­ ranging materi al :

That is a lot of history to pack into a play, but Mr . Anderson is craftsman enough to limit himsel f to what a play can present without attenuat ion. He confi nes himsel f to the love affair and leaves the pol itical ramifications to summary and implicat ion, in this respect proving once again that he has a neat way of conjuring up the shades of all but vanished romanticism.83

Gassner stressed An derson 's use of economy to move this play along, as did G i 1 bert w. Gabri e 1: "[The play] has been stripped down to race, and it races; to effects, and it is hi ghly and irrmediately

1184 effective. To Gabriel , the effect Anderson attempted to convey made a good impression : too many smal l cap­ If somet i mes ••• it seems reduced to sules too little real medicine for such a series of hasty ders gulps : that ' s an agreeable way to take it. Mr. An on 59

h�d or iginal ly more history in it than its present ingre­ dients suggest. He had more thoughtful hes itation too and a �lower , �erhaps a subtler, taste. He lingered o� er the aci ds and ichors he was extracting from his two ch ief characters ' veins, and thes e ma de pl easurable chemistry ' fascinating poetizing. 85

An unnamed writer for Time al so thought An derson used hi's play

con struction tal ents wel l in Anne:

Anne of the Thousand Days has scenes of sp itting, high­ busted theater , an d a good many· moments- -early rather than late-- when it is about equ al ly fu stian and firm. It is fu ll of twists and contrasts-- of Anne's hate turning to liking as Henry's lik ing turn s to hate; of Henry's deter­ mination to have a throne and Anne's determination to have a thron e for her daughter (Eliz abeth) . 8 6

There were more mi xed judgments about Anderson 's pl aywriting

abilities, al so. The fl ashback technique bothered Brooks Atk inson

8 7 somewhat : "The scheme of short scen es breaks the rhythm. 11

Commonweal 's Kappa Phel an was not on ly di s sat isfied with the plot

devel opment but even wi th the whol e conception of the play itsel f:

What the business gives us is a spotlit stage : Anne in one corner, in the Tower , a\'/ai ting the hea dsman ; Henry in another corner , seal ing the death warrant; and both sol iloq uizing for al l they are worth. From thence we tra­ vel backwards in time through the il l-fated courtship, marriage and preceding divorce, wi th a few minor Wools ey scenes incl uded, al though no pol itical on es ; so that most of the stuff of the piece is don e into speeches of em� tional verbiage on ly. In this man ner we learn that Mr. Anderson ' s Anne was no innocent , no pawn ; that she and she Fi�her an� alon e was responsibl e for the deat�s of . Mo�e, the rest. In view of th is concept ion, it 1s a little d1 f­ f i c 1t to summon an appropriate amount of sympathy for this heroine when she is roaming through an other of Mr. Andersori 1 s wrung rei teration s announc ing-- "And so, I am to die !11 88

had Therefore , Phel an stated, nothing in Anderson 's whole play

e picture, and gen u inenes s. thel an rej ec ted the concept, the stag 60

ot her aspects of the pl ay. This was the on ly rev i ewer to take

exceptional issue with the pl ot and structural devel opment of Anne.

Sumnary

In what little he did wr ite on pl ot and structure, Anderson

refl ected Ari stotel ian ideas of pl aywriting: propt er hoc as opposed

to· post hoc. To most reviewers , An derson was very sk illed in writing plays about the events and times of El izabeth, Mary Stuart ,

and Anne Bol eyn. Plot and structure in these pl ays were unencunr­ bered by the historical mat eri al fr om wh ich An derson worked.

Negativ e ·carrmentary was primari ly focused on Anderson 's inability to ma intain the initial momentum of his plots in the pl ays . Anderson , compared to Shakespeare, wa s judged .not to be as great a tragedian.

His plots, it was stated, lacked the inevitable on rush of events found in Shakespearean works. However , on e comparison di d go in

Anderson 's fa vor : O'N e ill, wh ile excel ling in psychological prob­ ings , could not match An derson for ec onomy and smooth- fl owing dramat ic plot and structure.

While An derson di d cl aim that he wa s greatly infl uen ced by

Arist otle and often referred to him, rev i ewers were not expl icit in fin ding Aristotel ian el emen ts in An derson 's playwriting. From the

umed that conment ary analyz ed and the summary here, it can be ass

. This went reviewers themsel ves fol l owed Aristotl e's gui del ines

that reviewers unacknowl edged; yet, from thei r wri tings it shows

sed: wel l-made pl ots favore d the very el ements Ar istotl e had addres 61 that devel oped from previous action and unencumbered dramat ic struc­ ture. This shows the pervasive infl uence of Ari stotl e in play­ writing and criticism.

Themes for the Modern Audi ence

Elizabeth the Queen

Theme was, as a whole, not �reated extensi vely by revi ewers.

Yet some consideration was given to the centra l ideas Anderson was attempt ing to convey in the trilogy plays.

Otis Chatfield-Tayl or in Outlook and an unnamed writer for the Literary Digest focused upon the most obv ious theme of the play: pursui t of romantic love and love of power between El i zabeth and

Essex. Chatfiel d-Tayl or saw the pol itical and love interests almost as one in the same: "Inextricably intertwined with the pol itical situation is the human spectac le of an ol der woman in love with a 89 younger man . 11 The Literary Digest wr iter ident ified the theme of

El izabeth as being: "[El izabeth 1 s and Essex'] loves and 90 rivalries.11

Stark Young stated the theme of El izabet h emerged most clearly to him in the third act : "An empire lies between [El i zabeth 91 and Essex] and that they sacr1. f1c. e t h emse 1 ves t o 1"t • 11 Wha t com- ment was available on theme in Eli zabeth was concentrated about the l ove affai r of El izabeth and Essex, their lust for each other, and their equally stron g attraction to power and dominance over each other and the kingdom. 62

Mary of Scot 1 and

Reviewers for this play di d not consider theme too much of

an el ement to be analyzed, as was the case for Elizabeth. Those

writers who di d analyz e themat ic mat erial often failed to mention

what the themes were. An unnamed wr iter in Stage ga ve this account

of theme in Mary, without saying what it wa s : "Here is a grandly

human tragedy wh ich, with the un i versal ity of al l great ep ic themes ,

touches intimat ely every person it reaches , as littl e fretfu l pl ays 92 never can . 11 Stark Young stated that the namel ess themes were

impeded in pl aces, bei ng part of the play's action: "At time"." , no matter how great the simpl ificat ion, th is story is ruffled by out­

side issues histori cal ly inherent. These compl icate the smooth 93 stream of the ma in themes . 11 Young di d not analyz e theme as an el ement in and of itsel f. Euphenia Van Renssel aer Wy att di d some overl apping with plot and structure in her rev iewing when she men- I ' tioned theme: "For the theatre a theme must be devel oped wh ich must both condense the scenes and cl ari fy the mot ives wit hout undue

94 distortion of the actual facts and characters. 11 Wyatt ill ustrated the central izing aspect of a theme wh ile not mentioning what it was.

Such was the nature of most of the rev iewing in rel ation to theme i dentification and analys is about Mar�.

s i of the Miriam Motherwel l named two themes in her analy s

and mplete, play : "In Mary of Scotland you have love, generous co

matc hl ess ca ught in the web of pol icy wov en by a sp inster of 63

95 artifice. " Mary was the victim of love an d manipulation

according to Motherwel l.

Anne of the Thousand Days

John Gassner wrote: "Samet imes a pl ay reaches that common

denominator and at the same time expresses its author 's probings an d

convictions. This appears to be the case with Maxwel l Anderson 's 96 Anne of the Thousand Days . 11 Like most reviewers of Mary> Gassner

did not mention what exactly the theme wa s or what Anderson 's

" probings and convictions" were. Howev er , further in his rev iew

97 Gassner stated that the pl ay showed "gambits of love and hate. 11

Gassner's references to themat ic mat eri al an d devel opment in Anne were indirect and passi ng.

Joseph Wood K rutch sp ecifical ly noticed a lack of foc us regarding theme. Krutch fel t theme had been "played down ": 11[The play] is not primari ly concerned wi th a large general problem, either moral or met aphysical . But as Mr . An derson wrote it> the romance is something more than mere romance because some such 98 probl em is just visibl e in the backgroun d. 11 I

Sumnary

It was difficul t to gain insi ght into most reviewers '

of his thoughts on An derson 's devel opment of the themat ic aspects

brief and plays . Comnentary about theme was for the most part

man ner. There wa s usual ly referred to it in a passing and cursory

derson 's use of n o det ail i ng of strengths an d shortcomings in An 64

theme in the tri logy pl ays . Those few reviewers who made any

reference at al l to theme usually mentioned on e or two ideas that

coul d have been considered as themes : love and temp ora l power in

the liv es of El i zabeth, Mary Stuart , and Anne Bol eyn . These or any

number of other ideas coul d have been interpreted by reviewers as

being either ma in or subordinate themes , but this was not don e.

Anderson 's Estimation of Reviewers

Like many pl aywr ights Ma xwel l Anderson found himsel f at odds

with the reviewers of his work. Anderson took the added step of

putting his thoughts into print and publ icly announcing his

disagreements. Nowhere di d Anderson rebuke reviewers for a par­

ticular instance of their having attacked on e of his plays or his

works col l ectively. Instead, Anderson was reacting to what he fel t

was the seemingly absol ute consequences of rev i ewers ' ind ividual and

collective judgments on theatre activity in the Uni ted States .

Reviewers ' power , as Anderson saw it, came fr om the high

concentration in the 1940 's of legitimate theatre production in New

Y ork. In an article for the New York Times An derson wrote:

II • • • since New York is the only pl ay- producing center for the country, these same cr itics constitut e a censorship board for the

99 time theatre of the United States . 11 According to Anderson , at one

t hout the gau ntl et of a pl ay had more direct access to an audience wi

t e. But rising reviewers bei ng such a determining power to its fa

Anderson continued: co sts ma de that almost impossibl e; therefore, 65

100 "Plays now live or die by the verdict of the reviewers . 11

Anderson was more incl ined to call reviewers "j u dges from whom there

is no appeal . • • This court of final resort has the whole power

of the metropol itan press behind it arid operates in security, with no . IOI chance of adequate discussion or reply . .

Anderson del ineated the differences between reviewers' power , which he opposed, and thei-r fnfl uence, wh ich he fel t could be justified. Audiences, stat ed Anderson , demon strated the publ ic' s tendency to bel ieve what they read:

The difference between power and infl uence is almost an absol ute difference. The critics used to infl uence a play's destiny. Today they have the power of life and death ov er it. p·1ays are struck down on the opening night , with very brief consideration but complete final­ ity. The publ ic, reading tens of thousands of words of praise or dispraise, naturally attends or stays away as advised by the newspapers , and hits and fa ilures are so arrived at . 102 If audiences were al lowed to dec ide for themsel ves, Anderson claimed, they would prove abl e to choose intel ligently:

My own observation makes me certain that the publ ic would accept many more plays , many more playwri ghts and a far wider range of subj ects if it were al lowed to choose for itsel f •••the theater publ ic contains audiences of many kinds-- overlapping but almost infinite. Left to them­ sel ves these audiences would fi nd out and support the

_ _ plays that suited them, with the result that the _ the�tre woul d in vastly more territory and reach both hlgher take IO 3 a�d lower than its present leading-strings wou ld al l ow.

Frustrated though he was with revi ewers, Anderson admitted some reviewers had a pioneering spirit. Often , Anderson stated, de i n divi dual reviewers dis covered a new pl aywri ght or dramatic mo 66

and began an eventual acceptance that audiences ordinarily wou ld not

have bestowed.

Still, Anderson remained convinced of revi ewers' perceived

mis understandings, their ill- considered opinions, their hit-and-run

eval uations, and their so-cal led final judgments deciding the future

of a play. Anderson stated that this was a wrong, not in keeping

with democratic traditions:

· It fol lows , as I have said before, that when the critics say no to a play that no is final . And that being true, they operate a censorship over the plays that may be seen in New York and-- since New York is our on e product ion center-- in the Uni ted States . This is an unhealthy state of affairs whether the cr itics are learn ed or unl earned, witty or dul 1 , ju.st or unjust. It 's unhealthy because it's undemocratic. The people of a democracy should dec ide for themsel ves what plays they wi ll see. 104

Anderson presented no ev i dence to support his cont ent·ions. Rather,

· he fel t if on ly the rules of the game could somehow have been

altered, that if somehow revi ewers were not to be so heavily rel ied

upon, audiences coul d have demon strated what he fel t was innate good

judgment concerning the good and bad in the theatre . As discussed

earlier, Anderson avai led himsel f of a stron g fa ith.

Sumnary

By . setting down his "dramat ic theory " and "replying" to

reviewers, Maxwel l Anderson demonstrated his deep commitment to ewers over theatre. Anderson emphasized the supposed power of revi

the ultimate fate of a play. 6 7

Summary and Conclusions on Chapter III

Reviewers, as a whol e, judged Maxwel l Anderson to be a com­

·pet ent , but not an outstanding, poet . Those rev i ewers being the

most positive about his verse indul g�d in some hedging• . Comparisons

and contrasts to the classical poets were made; Anderson ,

invariably, could not match their poetry. Anderson 's verse was found inferi or to cont emporary poets, al though they could not match him in pl aywriting. Some of the commentary was sharply negat ive, and, except for the very guarded endorsement by other reviewers,

Anderson . did not fulfil his intention as announced in his dra�at ic theory: to make verse drama active in the modern theatre. No reviewer saw this happening to the modern stage. However, despite the shortcomings seen in his efforts, Anderson was credited for having att empted verse drama.

Anderson was judged by most revi ewers to be a masterful creator of dramatic characters. Reviewers were general ly consistent in finding Anderson 's main characters in the trilogy endowed with complexity, intelligence, motivation, strength, and ruthlessness.

Most revi ewers di d not mention tragedy. A few reviewers di d stat e that they found Anderson 's protagon ists in the trilogy to possess tragic stat ure. None of these rev i ewers, however, made any outri ght comparisons or contrasts to the Aristotel ian genre. Other writers came to opposite conclusions about the characters portrayed.

Problems were perceived in ov ercomin g obstacles or preconceptions in regard to history because historical tragedy seemed irrel event. 68

Anderson 's characters el icited the most di scussion from revi ewers in

their newspapers and ma gazine articles. The material from which

. Anderson created his characters invited comment: El i zabeth and

Essex' love affair; Mary Stuart, as the historical person and as the

dramat ic character; and fi nal ly, the con sequences deriv ing from Anne

and Henry's tempestuous courtship, marriage, and estrangement . From

the revi ewers' overall standpoint, Anderson came closer to

ful filling what he expressed in his theory concerning character

devel opment. An derson did state that ·he wanted to write tra gedy

based up�n Ar istotel ian precepts; on ly a few reviewers agree� that he had don e this. Otherwise, revi ewers ei ther ignored the whole

issue of tragedy or stat ed that An derson definitely had not created

it. This was, in all, a very mi xed success for Anderson in com­

parison to his announced goal in the dramat ic theory.

With the appearance of each individual play of the tri l ogy,

character devel opment brought out the most discussion by reviewers,

plus the most obv ious change in the writers ' perceptions about

Anderson 's playwriting. From 1930 to 1948 discussion of history went from the background to the forefront of revi ewer judgment.

From Elizabeth, continuing with Mary, and up through Anne, the h i storica l events portrayed were seen as having increasing impor­ tance for the plays in revi ewer criticism. Favorable comnentary about plot and structure devel opment stated that An derson constructed wel l-crafted and free-fl O\'ling P 1 ays that were not ov erwhelmed by historical detail. Here was an 69

indirect admission of Aristotel ian gui del ines for playwriting.

Reviewers of an oppos ing view found that Anderson had trou�l e

. sustaining the initial dr ive of his plots. This defl ated the impact

of his pl ays ; therefore, they l acked · tra gic inexorability. Concern

was also expressed about distortion of character due to the con­

densing of pl ot. In his dramat ic theory Anderson stat ed that a pl ot

shoul d be con structed in a way that- gives pri me dramatic importance

to the sel f-recognition scene. The pre�eding and antecedent act ion

shoul d revolve around this scene. Those rev i ewers who endorsed

Anderson on plot end structural el ements came cl ose to statin� that

Anderson had accompli shed this. Both Anderson and the reviewers, in

their separate wri tings, favored fast- mov ing plot lines that told their stories simply and without di gressive and burdens ome adorn­ ment . This was in the Ar istotel ian tradition of propter hoc .

Reviewers eit her ov erlooked theme completely or analyz ed it with little depth. Amon g the few revi ewers who did mention theme the on e idea that consist ently came forward in the rev i ews was l ove--as it exists between El izabeth and Essex, Mary and Bothwel l,

Anne and Henry. To a lesser extent, temporal power as a theme was ment ioned. Considering the emphas is that Anderson placed on theme and the scarcity of comment about it or its omission by revi ewers, a definite separat ion existed between the playw right and his revi e\-1er cri tics on this aspect. l ogy and some Comnents and judgments of revi ewers on the tri thoughts on drama of his ot her plays caused Anderson to publ ish his 70

reviewers. This highl ighted even more sharply the differences that

are inherent between pl aywright s an d critics. Anderson stated that

. drama reviewers possessed too much power over the determination of the fate of a play. To An derson , this met hod of judging the worth

of a play seemed unfair, but he offered no practical alternate

proposals.

Overall, Anderson 's receptton by revi ewers was considerably

mixed in rel ation to his dramatic theory. Only in their criticism

of character development (aside from tragedy) and plot/structure

con struction did reviewers come close to seeing his ideas in

somewhat the same fashion as An derson had articulated them in his

theory. FOOTNOTES

1 Richard Dana SKi nner, "The Play, " Commonweal, 19 November 0 193 , p. 76. 2 1 bid. 3 Mark Van Doren , "Drama : [l i zabeth the Queen , 11 Nation, 19 November 1 930 , p. 562 . 4 Ibi d. 5 Francis Fergusson , "The Theatre Versus Certain Artists of the Theatre," Bookman , February 1931 , p. 62 7. 6 Ibi d.

7 Ibid. 8 George Jean Nathan , "The Theatre of George Jean Nathan," Judge, 29 November 1930 , p. 16. 9 · Ibid. 10 srooks Atk inson, "The Play, 11 New York Times, 28 November 1933, p. 28. 111 1A Playgoer 's Discoveri es ," Stage, January 1934, p. 12. 12 George Brandt , "Manhattan Offers, 11 Review of Reviews , February 1934 , p. 39. 1 3 Richard Dana Sk inner, "The Play, " Commonweal, 15 December 1 933, p. 189. 14 George Jean Nathan , "The Theatre , 11 Vanity Fair, February 1 934 , p. 16. 15 Ibid. 16 srooks Atk inson, "Anne and Henry, 11 New York Times , 19 December 1 948, sec. II, p. 3. 17 John Mason Brown , "Seeing Things, 11 Saturday Review of Literature, 25 December 1948, p. 25. 1 8 Atkinson , op. cit. 72

1 9 John Gassner, "The Theatre Arts ," Forum, February 1949, p. 92. 20 1 bid. 21 1 bid. 22 Brown , op. cit. 23 1 bid. 24 . J. Brooks Atk inson , "The. Play-- Every Inch A Queen , 11 New York Times, 4 November 1930 , p. 30 25 Richard Dana Ski nner,· "The Play, 11 Commonweal, 19 Nov ember 1930 , p. 76 . 26 Ibid• . 27 Ibid. 28 Stuart Beach, "The Edi tor Goes to the Play, 11 Theatre 6 Magazine, Jan uary 1931, p. 6 . 29 Ibid. 30 van Doren, Nation, 19 November 1930 , p. 562 . 31 Ibid. 32 skinner, op. cit. 33 1 bid. 34 sarrett H. Cl ark, "Broadway Plays Pass in Review, " Drama Magazine, Dec ember 1930 , p. 12. 35 stark Youn g, "Sha dow's Shadows , 11 New Republic, 13 December 1933 , p. 130. 36 1 Euphenia Van Rensselaer Wy att, "The Drama , 1 Cathol ic Wor l d, January 1934, p. 4 73. 3 7 Miriam Motherwel l, "Queens at Daggers Drawn, 11 Stage , December 1933, p. 15. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 73

40 1 bid. 41 Ibid.

42 11 Joseph Wood Krutch, "Drama--Why History?, Nation, 13 December 1933, p. 689. 43 Ibid., pp. 689- 690. 44 Ibid. 45 Edith J. R. Issacs, "Good' Playing A Plenty, " Theatre Arts Monthly, Jan uary 1934 , p. 42. 46 Cy Cal dwel l, "To See or Not to See," New Outlook, Jan uary 1934 , p. 42. 4 7 Ibid. 48 Joseph Wood Krutch, "Drama ," Nation , 1 January 1949, p. 24. . 49 1 bid. 50 1 bid. 51 Times, Atkinson , New York 19 December 1948. 52 . 1 bi d. 53 Atkinson, "At the Theatre, 11 New York Times, 9 Dec ember 1 948, p. 49.

54 11 Newsweek, "The Lust of Henry VII I, 20 Dec ember 1948, p. 72 . 55 Gilbert w. Gabriel , 11Playgoing, 11 Theatre Arts, March 1949, p. 54 . 56 Euphenia Van Renssel aer Wy att , "The Drama," Cathol ic Worl d, Jan uary 1949, p. 322. 5 7 Krut ch , op. c i t • 58 J. Brooks Atk inson, "When the Guild is Good," New York Times, 9 November 1930 , sec . ix, p. 1. 59 1 bid. 60 19 Nov ember 1930, stark Young, "El i zabeth, 11 New Republ ic, p. 17. 74

61 Ibid. 62 1 bid. 63 0tis Chatfiel d-Tayl or, "The Theatre ," Outlook, 19 November 1930 , p. 472. 64 Fergusson , Bookman, February 1931� p. 627. 65 Nathan, Judge , 29 November 1930 , p. 16• . 66 c1 ark, Drama Magazine, December 1930, p. 12. 67 Ibid. 68 Skinner, Commonweal, 15 December 1933, p. 1 89. 69 wyatt, Cathol ic Worl d, January 1934 , p. 4 73 • . 7 0 Motherwel l, Stage , December 1933, p. 16. 71 Ibid. 72 w;11 iam Rose Benet , "Bri ghtness Fal ls From the Air," Saturday Review of Literature, 17 February 1934, p. · 496. 7 3 Ibid. 74 Ibid. 75 1 bid. 76 1 bid. 77 . Skinner, op. cit. 78 Ibid. 79 lbi d. 8 01 bid. B l Ibid. 82 Gassner, Forum, February 1949, P· 93. 83 Ibid. 84 riel , Theatre Arts, March 1949, p. 54. Gilbert w. Gab 75

85 Ibid. 86 11 New Play in Manhattan," Time, 20 December 1948, p. 60. 8 7 . Atkinson , New York Times ,. 9 December 1948. 88 Kappo P he1 an, "The Stage & Screen ," Commonweal , 24 December 1948, p. 281 . 89 · otis Chatfield-Tayl or , Outlook, 19 November 1930 , p. 4 72 . 90 11 Every Inch a Queen," Literary Digest, November 2.2, 1930 , p. 1 7. 91 Young, New Republ ic, 13 December 19'33, p. 130 . 92 stage, Jan uary 1934 , p. 12.· · 93 . Young, New Republ ic, op . cit. 94 wy att, Commonweal , 15 December 1933, p. 189. 95 Motherwel l, Stage , op . cit. 96 Gassner , Forum, op. cit. 9 7 Ibid. 8 � �rutch, Nation, 1 Jan uary 1949, p. 24 . 99 Maxwel l An derson , "The Mi ghty Critics," New York Times , 16 February 1947, sec . 2, p. 1. lOO lbid. lOl lbid. 102 1 bid. 103 1 bid. 104 Maxwel l Anderson , "More Thoughts About Dramatic Cri tics, 11 New York Herald-Tribune, 10 October 1948, sec. V, p. 1. CHAPTER IV

ANALYSIS OF SCHOLAR LY CR ITICISM

.Procedure and Organ ization

Chapter IV of this study will analyz e schol arly articles for

their content about Maxwel l An derson 's use and development of dra­

matic verse, character, plot and structure, and theme in the Tudor

trilogy plays. Schol ars di d not write articles on on e Tudor trilogy

play, exclusively. Either the articl es considered them together as

a group or as a part of Anderson 's larger output of plays, both prose and verse. Therefore, commentary that specifical ly refers to

the trilogy or was part of an overall general view will be used by

this study. The major organization of this chapter will fol low the

format of Chapter III. A departure will be made in one respect.

Since none of the articl es or thei r organization fol l owed the tril­ ogy as the newspaper reviews di d, the subdivisions using the three

individual play titles wi ll not appear. Conclusions about the con­ tent of this chapter will use the gui del ines found in Chapter I

(P. 9 ).

Poetry for the Modern Audience

The year 1930 was noted as the beginning of Anderson 's verse contribution to theatre, specifical ly with the tri logy plays.

Harlan Hatcher in the Engl ish Journal wrote: "On November 3, 1930 , the Theatre Guild, Inc. , produced Maxwel l Anderson's Elizabeth the 1 Queen. 11 With Eli zabeth and later verse plays, Anderson was attempt ing something mostly untried up to that time: "Here was a 77

modern play about historic fi gures written largely in verse •••

The success of the play, and of certain others wh ich have followed

it, has rev ived general interest in the contemporary drama in 2 verse. 11 Because of his early efforts with Elizabeth . and his sub­ sequent verse drama , noted Hatcher, "[Anderson] has thus become

ident ified more than any other dramat ist with the renewal of

interest in the probl em of the representat ion of dramat ic subj ects 3 in el evat ed speech that soars at appropriate moments into verse. 11

Hatcher focused on some specific extracts from Eli zabet h, then made this judgment : "Con forming to the demands of the p:--ac­ t i ca 1 theater, Maxwel l Anderson has taken care to restra in these fl ights into verse within limits of verisimil itude, sel dom per­ mitting them to outrun or wei gh down the action of a character. ,.4 Hatcher fel t that Anderson was a dramat ist who was careful in not using excess in his language. Hatcher noted that Anderson 's verse needed to be experienced in the theatrical setting as wel l as read:

• ••· it must be borne in mind that these plays were built to be spoken , as accompani ment to action and on ly inci­ dentally to be read •••When the ear catches the language direct from the uttering pl ayer , it is aware on ly that the speech is nobl e, fl uent, and carefully cadenced; speech as it shoul d be if feel ing were al ways matched with the right and the beautiful word.5

Hatcher al so discussed Anderson 's verse technique: "Anderson has used a free and often a relaxed form of iambic pent ameter, but he has striven to prevent the lines from regularizing themsel ves by del iberately forcing a chantl ike irregularity aft er a line or two of 6 strict bl ank verse. Surrmari zing his articl e, Hatcher wrote that 78

Anderson had a classical backgroun d and approach to verse:

"An derson 's work is close to the great tradition of the Engl ish stage, and when it touches the level of verse, it sl ides pl iantly in 7 and out of a pattern recogn izably si'milar to Marl owe's �ighty line.11

Hat cher fel t An derson had made a signifi cant contribution to literature and theatre with his verse plays , specifically with Eli zabeth and Mary.

Phili p Steven son in New Theatre noted Anderson 's turning to dramatic verse and historical drama at . the beginn ing of the 1 930 's: "1930 marked Anderson 's return to the past for his mat eri a 1, and poetry for his medium. He deserves high praise for his revival of the use of poetry in the theatre, regardl ess of whether we accept it 8 as true dramat ic poetry. 11 These plays had signifi cance for

Anderson as a playwri ght : "The two 'queen plays ' should be regarded as trial bal l oons with which An derson tr ied his audience's reaction 9 to poetry. 11 Stevenson then gave an overview of Anderson 's work in verse drama : in The impressive success of An de�son's ventures .. poet ic drama , no 1 ess from box- off� ce tha� from the cr1 ti­ view, the growth of h1s conf1 d nce and t�e cal point of . � maturity of his craftsmanship, ma�e it poss� ble for him to indulge his own des ires as to cho1ce of subJ ect and method.10 To Stevenson this represented a progression that began with the first plays of the tri logy and wh ich woul d event ual ly result in

Winterset. 79

In Stage, Ruth Woodbury Sedgwick al so noted 1930 and

Anderson 's accompl ishment at that time:

When Anderson came back to poetry in 1930 he had bul warked his maj estic inspirat ion with al l of the ski lls of the sh?wman 's art. Del i berately in Eli zabeth the Queen he hel d his verse as near the level of prose as possible. Rhythm and fi gures were simplified almost to the point of austerity ••• one associated, in the subconscious of every player, with the cadence of bl ank verse. 11

Sedgwick was , like Hatcher, impressed wi th Anderson 's tec hnique in

verse wri ting. Her comparison of his verse to prose in general

impl ied an economy and an absence of excess that she found in

Anderson ' s writing of Eli zabeth. The result, stated Sedgwic�, was

good for Anderson and theatre: 11The play surged into irmiediate and

notable success; a distinguished contribution to dramatic litera­ 12 ture, a sumptuous piece for the theatre. 11 But it was with Mary,

according to Sedgwick, that Anderson attained the best response to

his dramat ic verse:

With Mary of Scotland the last barrier against ma gnifi­ cence fell; and playgoers rushed through the gaps to bask in bea uty and heroic attitudes . Here was lan gua ge which traced its lineage honestly in the legitimate classic line; back to Kit Marlowe, father of Engl ish trag­ 13 edy, pioneer in dramat ic bl ank verse.

As Hatcher had previously, Sedgwick used al l usions to classical

English theatre for comparison to Anderson . Sedgwick stat ed that e Anderson went on to even greater acceptance of his dramatic vers . Lik e with Vall ey Forge , Winterset , Masgue of Kings, and High Tor derson ' s Stevenson , Sedgwick had traced a progression in An p laywriting abi lit ies and accomplishments. 80

Homer E. Wood bri dge for South Atl antic Quarterly wrote about

Anderson 's begin ning his verse drama in 1 930 : "He return ed to his

first lo ve, the poet ic drama, wi th a historical tragedy in verse,

El i zabet h the Queen . This was , I bel ieve, t.he turning point of his 14 career. 11 Anderson , thought Woodbri dge, proved to be a leader

because of his verse wr i ting: " •••he gave the publ ic what he

wanted to write instead of wh at it ·was supposed to wan t; and he won 1 5 a great and deserved success.11 Woodbridge bel i eved the 1 930 's was

a period of hi gh achievemen t for Ande�son : "it is this series of

plays by which his work up to the present must be judged; it �s in them, and not in the strictly real istic plays , that the distinctive

. . 16 t ra1•t s o f h.1 s genius h ave f oun d expression. 11 But it was with

El izabeth and Mary that An derson devel oped his verse · to the fu llest extent: "Mr. An derson real ly di scovered himsel f, I think, in the 1 7 historical plays.11 Woodbridge foun d Anderson 's verse in the history pl ays exciting and versatile:

[In the history pl ays] he devel oped his characteristic verse-form-- a rather bl ank verse wi th a sort of tumbl ing, rse hurry ing rhythm, lik e that of a tossing sea�-a ve that can be used in col loquial scenes , but that is capabl e of 1 8 rising to hi gh level s of imaginative beauty .

t er ly found Anderson Henry c. Lee in North Dakota Quar engaged in a pioneeri ng effort with a "new" form of theatre:

Elizabet h the Queen (1930 � wa� his fi rst pl ay i� this • • was new vei n and remain s on e of hi s fi nest pl ays : it than­ an imp ressive play wh ich demon strated that El i zabe ears of a type bl ank verse coul d be ma de acceptable to the ••• derson] wanted very much to see modern audience [An . bel i eved the developmen t of a modern form of trage?Y · H: ghtening of with Aristotle that tragedy requ ires a hei 81

effect, that poetry was the true medium of tragedy and he fel t that American drama needed the hand of a great poet. 19

. To Lee there was on e play above al l. others that was to be remembered

for An derson 1 s work in verse drama : "Elizabeth the Queen was the first modern Am erican drama to be written in verse, and its success 20 called attention to the genuine thi rst for poetry in the theatre. 11

William E. Taylor hel d that Anderson ' s verse drama was an

ideal to which the playwright gave his career: "Anderson devoted

his life to attempt ing to restore poetic drama to the modern stage,

feel ing it was the on ly ri ght instrument to lift drama to thP high 21 function he bel i eved it had. 11 Tayl or cal led Anderson 's concept of

poetry "Victorian," but ma inly he fel t it succeeded in its purpose:

11 [Anderson ] writes, for the most part , a rather 1 oose and innocuous bl ank verse which on many occasions rises to the emotional demands he pl aces upon it and on ly sel dom intrudes upon the conscious reader 22 as a distraction.11 While not ment ioning the trilogy plays ,

Taylor 's judgment was made from them as part of his consideration.

Vincent Wal l in Sewanee Review Quarterly wrote that

Anderson•s dramat ic verse often put him at odds with "his critic s and peers": II . . . he has dared to write p 1 ays which were romantic and tragic and in verse when a good many of his critics fel t that contemporary life could on ly be expressed real istically and in 23 et ime professions as a prose . .. wa 11 thought that An derson 's on ifications for his journa list and as a professor were excel lent qual attempts to revive verse drama : 82

•••An derson brought to the theatre not on ly the journal ist's and editor's awareness of contemporary events, and the poet 's depth of feel ing and sense of language but al so the schol ar 's knowledge of the heritage of the theater from Aeschyl us to I bsen.24 .

Eli zabeth and Mary were the examp l es· Wal l used to show how Anderson

devel oped his verse. In these two pl ays , Wal l stated, verse--and prose--were used to calculated effect :·

In ELIZABETH THE QUEEN and 'MARY OF SCOTLAND Anderson was taking legen ds fami liar to theater- goers and decorat ing them with verse •••There is fa irly judicious mingl ing of prose and poetry, for instance, in ELI ZABETH THE QUEEN: the bustle and confusion of the council scene of the third act is en t irely in prose. The dialogue turns to poetry on ly when El ·i zabeth and Essex face on e another alone. In MAR Y OF SCOTLAND •••hi s styl e seems to be more discipl ined, at times almost becoming sparse and barren. 25

Anderson coul d create a powerfu l language in his playwriting that was not limited sol ely to verse, Wal l stated.

Amon g schol ars fr om Hatcher to Wa ll the consensus was that

Anderson had composed a competently written verse in the history

(trilogy) plays whi le attempting to reacquaint modern audi ences with verse drama . Other scholars dissented from this overall view. John

Gassner had mi xed judgments on Anderson 's verse in the tril ogy plays. In Theatre Time Gassner at first described what, to him, were good el ements in the verse: His line structure wh ich may be described as a free kind blank verse in he ma in, is close enough to conventional of t dialogue to pose no di fficulties or the playgoer. � . . Anderson is always crystal-clear in stateme� t, a� d it lS probabl e that even the prol i xity and r etoric wh ich have � . been noted to his discredit have been incurred by him less because he is intoxicated with language t�an because h: wants to be understood. Al so, he entertains a decorative 83

vie w of poetry, and th is gives his poetic plays a col or­ fulness of speech that is attractive to a publ ic not gar­ ticularly dedicated to ri gorous standards of poetry.2 6

For the general theatre audience for whom Anderson was aiming, Gassne r cl aimed, the verse did wel l. The tr'i logy best exempl ified

Anderson 's success in audi ence acceptance: "[Anderson] started with

the historical plays Elizabeth the Queen and Mary of Scotland. _ These, along with the latest treatment of a sixteenth century sub­

ject, Anne of the Thousand Days , have been his most popular 2 7 efforts. 11 Gassner's view was that Anderson 's success came from giving his audiences a different theatre experience without mak ing

inordinate demands on them.

Ga�sner then discussed the weaknesses he found in Anderson 's

verse. There was , stated Gassner, a too obv ious del iberateness in

the verse writing and an absence of a genuine free- flowing qual ity:

Al though Maxwel l An derson is a hi gh-minded man , his tragic feel ing seems too often pre- fabricated or imposed by him upon life. And the same sense of something laid on can al so be observed in his dramat ic verse, since the poetic qual ity is frequently a pol ish added to a thought or sentiment rather than compul sive expression or incan­ descence. A good deal of even his most forceful verse seems less generated by the fl ame within than acquired by tion with its tra­ a knowl edge of literature and by associa dition •••The consecration of art in most of Anderson 's work has been on e can suspect, too transparently wi lled. His poetic dr�ma seems rather academic, an impression al so s upported by the reminiscent qual ity of lines and situations.2 8

Even in his dissatisfaction Gassner found positive comment to give concerning the verse that Anderson wrote: " If Mr. Anderson has earned our esteem, it is for setting a high val uation of dramatic 84

29 art and for mak ing literary drama attractive on our tawdry stage. 11

The qual ity of Anderson 's verse seemed too formal for it to be truly

expressive poetry, according to Gas·sner. Still, he fel t the theatre

was better for Anderson 's having wr itten his dramat ic v€rse.

Edmund Wil son in the New Republ ic ra ised the idea that verse

was usel ess in modern wri ting, es pecial ly in theatre. It was

Wilson's contention that Anderson 's work exempl ified the datedness of theatrical verse:

Mr. Anderson , it seems to me, in his own plays has given the most striking confirmat ion of the obsol escence

of verse techn ique •••I do not mean that he is tech­ nically incompet ent; but he wr ites badly because Engl ish blank verse no lon ger has any rel ati on whatever to the language or temp o of our lives , and because, as soon as he tries to use it, he has no vehicl e for his genui ne gifts of dialogue-- he has no resources but a fl avorl ess imagery which was growing trite in our grandfathers ' tim�.30

Wilson contended that this indul gence in an archaic form of wr iting

severely hampered An derson 's true and val uable abilities as a playwri ght: "I am incl ined to bel ieve, furthermore, that it is this unhappy infatuat ion with bl ank verse which has aborted Mr. 31 Anderson ' s tal ents al l aroun d. 11 Wilson further asserted that the almost intractabl e limits placed upon Anderson prevented his plays from real izing their potential : "Mr. Anderson 's plays can on ly proffer the dimmest imitat ions of the senti ments of the El izabet hans and Greeks in connection with ev ents of a quite different 32 character . .. Anderson , the modern p 1 aywri ght , coul d not meet the son ntended: demands of modern theatre using antiquated verse$ Wil co . Anderson is "A techni que shoul d grow out of the material : and Mr 85

trying to impose an ol d techn ique which has nothing to do with his

material . Instead of gett ing deeper into real ity as he devel ops , he 33 · is carried by his verse farther away. 11 Wil son found confusion in

Anderson 's p 1 aywri ting due to his dramat ic v.erse. Con sequent ly, so

long as Anderson kept to his dramatic verse, Wil son could see nothing of importance emerging from Anderson 's playwriting.

Donna Gerstenberger in an articl e for Modern Drama al so claimed that An derson 's verse was antiquated. The effect,

Gerstenberger stated, "continues unbroken the tradition wh ich has 34 1 imited the growth of verse drama in our ti me. 11 Anderson 's · plays

Elizabeth and Mary "are not distinguishabl e in intention and construct ion from the turn- of- the-c.entury practice of verse 35 drama,11 wrot e Gerstenberger . Anderson 's efforts , · therefore, had the opposite effect of what Gerstenberger des ired--verse drama had not evolved into a rel evant theatrical use, rather, she contended, it had remained static.

Sunmary

The year 1930 was when El izabeth the Queen appeared, the first play of a long line of verse drama and the start of what by

1 948 would be known as the "Tudor tri l ogy. " Schol ars favorably disposed to Anderson thought that his verse was marked by the right amount of restraint and economy , which avoided ornateness and heavy imagery that could have wei ghed down the pl ays. With some inev i- tabl e compari sons to Shakespeare an d Others from the "cl ass,. cal 11 86

period, it was fel t An derson had created a carefully wrought verse

language for his trilogy pl ays . Al though wri ting in a time when

prose dominat ed the theatre, Anderson was judged to have crafted a

theatrical form considered worthwhile in its· purpose of. being writ­

ten for the modern theatre audience.

Perceived shortcomings cited by other schol ars incl uded a

sel f-consci ousness inherent in An derson 's writing. His verse,

stated these schol ars, seemed artificial and not dramatical ly

powerful. According to them Anderson 's efforts seemed on ly a very

dim refl ection of Shakespearean forms. Rather than wri ting a

language that seemed to fl ow natural ly, such scholars asserted,

Anderson 's verse appeared too pl anned and del iberate, as if Anderson

was showing off his er udition. Schol ars who hel d this view assumed

that instead of reviving interest in verse drama, Ander son ' s plays

reinforced the medium as an an achron ism for the modern stage. The

effect of al l this, according to this viewpoint, was that Anderson 's

playwriting abil ities were not al l owed to adequat�ly and fully

devel op. 87

Tragedy--Aristotel ian Infl uences on ' Anderson s Concepts of Character, Plot and Structure

Character . Scholars tended to agree that Anderson had created tragedy

in the trilogy plays. Differences were ev ident as to what genre of tragedy Anderson had written. Two schol ars though.t Anderson wrote a new and modern tragedy and went so far as to give labels to

Anderson 1 s "modern " version of tragedy.

Herbert El l sworth Childs in a detailed articl e for Engl ish

Journal emphasi zed "ci rcumstance" as the key to understanding

Anders�nian tragedy: In these plays the. confl ict Hes always between the hero and circumstances. · Somet imes the hero is opposed , some­ times reinforced by a secon dary hero (Mary by Bothwel l and Elizabeth, El izabeth by Essex) . But al ways the confl ict is one of circumstance.36

Anderson was, according to Childs, wr iting about man and his sur- · roundings where there are no absol utes to struggl e against, a common trait amon g many twentieth century writers:

For Anderson to write a tragedy of character woul d be to deny one of the chief intel l ectual advances of the worl d-­ our widely diffused lack of confidence in the freedom of the will. A human being free to choose may take this way to destruction, that way to irrrnortal ity. The truth is, Mr. Anderson seems to imply , that we do not know what makes man good or bad, a success or fa ilure. The on ly answer is circumstance--to ·most people an unsat isfactory, agnosti c answer, but apparently Mr. Anderson refuses to 9? beyon d i t. Con sequently hero after hero meets destruction because the incomprehensible forces of life are too stron g for him. 37 88

Circumstance determines tragic fate in Anderson ian tragedy, wrote

" Chi 1 ds, most pl ays are maneuvered into situations from which there is no escape exc ept compromise with the forces of ev il, itsel f a 38 form of tragic failure. 11 Such tragedy was very rel evant to twen­

tieth cent ury audiences: "It is a kind of tragedy easy for us to

bel ieve in, who are losing our last fa ith in things seen and 39 dis sected and mathemat ically hypothecated. 11

Chil ds ill ustrated "tragedy of circumstance" by citing

Eli zabeth where expediency dec ides Essex' tragic fat e:

Though in Anderson 's version Essex makes the final dec i- . sion, the central fi gure is Queen El izabeth; the probl em is the age-ol d necessity of sacrificing the eggs to the omel et . In order to rule and keep peace in her kingdom El izabeth treacherously condemns her lover to death.40

The "ci rcumstance" makes the eventual fate of both Essex and

El i zabeth certa in. Further , Childs stat ed, it is tragedy of two characters:

It is one of inev itable confl ict between Essex's irre­ sistibl e ambition and El izabeth's immovabl e throne. , Neither prevails for though at the las t moment El i zabeth abjectly offers him a share in the kingdom, Essex refuses and walks to his death. Both are victims of necessity , figures of tragic circumstance.4 1

Through unalter able "circumstance" the characters are confronted with no recourse; they must act in a certain way, Chi lds contended.

Mary, likewise, was con fronted with circumstance: "She did not marry Bothwel l at the ri ght time, and, giving him up, later accepted 42 him when it was dis aster to do so. " 89

Harol d H. Watts in College Engl ish al so had a twentieth cen­

tury interpretation of Anderson 's tragic genre. Anderson 's plays

were defi nitely products of a modern istic outlook, stated Watts :

"They contain a tragic insight that is not ably a product of our age-­

perhaps the singl e on e poss ible to our age as Anderson and those 43 who share his backgroun d have env ·i saged. 11 In Eli zabeth, stated

Childs, a transformat ion comes slowly and inexorably:

• • • to the aging woman he� love for the young man is a rock •••On it drip--and beat , .in time of fl ood-­ waters · that alter its fi rm outl ine�. The rock lacks power to turn aside the trickles and torrents that wear it away . The · Cecils and Burghl eys and Bacon s wi ll have their way ••• so that by the end of the pl ay the love, the fi xed rock, is changed and offers footing to neither of the lovers •••Th at which both regarded as the most admirable fact in their lives �as en dured for too long the attrition of the waters •••That wh ich gave the two characters dignity and worth as individual s is (both admit) worn away. �4

From this came Watts 1 label for modern Anderson ian tragedy-- "tragedy

of attri tion. " The difference between An derson 's "tragedy of

attrition" and cl assical tragedy lay in the fol lowing dichotomy: in

classical tragedy "the confl ict is not pr imarily between good and bad men ; it is between the good and bad in man , in the tragic fi gure 45 itsel f. 11 Externals, however , dominate in "attrition" tragedy :

"Good always lies in the pose taken up by the tragic fi gure, and evil man ifests itsel f in the abrasive, external forces. One man is good, mankind is predet erminedly ev i l; hence, the endurance 46 contest. " Where classical tragedy was concerned with the inter­ nal struggl e within the protagonist, attrition tragedy has a 90

protagon ist pitted against the external worl d, with outside surroun d­

ings dictating. Watts expl ained Anderson 's tragic form in this

way: "According to th is picture, . all men are part of the stream 47 that effects attrition; none can offer res istance to it.11 Still,

Watts stated, An derson 's characters did not yi el d supinely to the

unyiel ding world; they offer resistance. Watts indicat ed this as an

encouraging sign: "Yet that some· person s do , history and Anderson 's 48 private hope indicate. 11 Sti.11, Ande,··son 's tragic prota gon ists in

Eli zabeth and Mary "wi ll sink before .the rushing forces of 49 attrition.11 Like Childs, Watts thought Anderson 's tragic genre

refl ected the literary and theatre fas hions of the time, this mak ing

Anderson a part of the overal l trend.

William E. Taylor was another schol ar who took the more

modernistic int erpretation of Anderson 's tragic characters.

Paraphrasing Shaw, Taylor stated the characters in Eli z abeth

11 : experience "the passion of discussion "[Anderson 's] characters do 50 talk ••• they often tal k wel l and even subtly. 11 After the

events of Essex ' rebel lion , recounted Tayl or, his arrest and impri­

sonment, Anderson has his characters confront each other where they bow to their respective fates:

They tal k this ov er , offering each other alternat i ves , but both know and recognize the irreconc ilable nature of the

••• ••• rson eaves his audienc with the paradox Ande � _ : impression that there is nothing that ei � her El izabeth or Essex can do. He will therefore go to his death, and she will live on through a powerful rei gn but a personally sterile life.51 91

Taylor likewise emphasized the despair of the times discussed in

Childs' and Watts ' commentari es : "In Maxwel l Anderson 's plays • . . 52 men do fight very much a 1 one--and they fi ght a 1 os ing bat t 1 e. 11 . With schol ars Childs, Watts, and Tayl or th� pi�t ure de�el oped of

Anderson 's hav ing written a tragedy rel evant to the twentieth cen-

tury experience. Environment was the determining factor in the ' . tragedy rather than the internal weaknesses and the resultant sel f­

discovery that hel d in the cl assical Aristotel ian definition.

Vincent Wal l likewise saw such a trend in modern drama but

considered An derson 's work to be an exception: "Having lost al l

bel ief in the gods as wel l as arbitrary ri ghts and wrongs, modern

authors can on ly wri te tra gedies wh ich are an accusat ion against the

·

. . 1 1 • e wor d rat h er than a Just1'f 1 cat. io n o f •t 1153 A n d erson , h s t ate d , was trying to retain some of the magnifi cence of cl assical tragedy in

his pl ays:

ELI ZABETH THE QUEEN was to be a tragedy-- if not a modern tra gedy, at least a tragedy by a modern author. The pro­ tagonists were heroic: a queen , capricious, fi erce­ tempered, proud and lovely, and a young and ambitious court ier ••• here a man and woman were work ing out their own inevitable destruction; yet it was on e wh ich must leave the audience with the satisfaction that it was not only inevitable but that the charact ers were somehow ennobled by it. 54 Wall was appreciative of Anderson 's wri ting in a classical tragic

tradition for twentieth century audiences. Anderson 's Essex, al l

bel ieved, fitted very wel l into the classical tragic frame: "Lord

Essex is destroyed by his tragic fl aw, ambition, just as surely as . was MacBeth; he has realized that he would have ruled El izabeth's 92

kingdom rashly and heedl essly, that she was cautious and wi se in 55 intrigue and diplomacy. 11 Wal l gave pri mary importance to "tragic

fl aw" in further discussion of El fzabeth's two main characters:

It is true, then, that the tragic fl aw wh ich in this case is an essenti al in the character of each of the pro�a�on ists is that wh ich dictates the en d of the tragedy . Amb1t1on, pri. de of pl ace, prevents them from enjoying their love, since it causes them to doubt that love.56

El izabeth's and Essex' mut ual love is their mutual "tragic fl aw"; this was the central aspect of the tragedy of the two characters, as

Wal l saw it. Destruction comes to both characters, st ill, it is ennob 1 ing:

In EL IZABETH THE QUEEN both prota gon ists are destroyed since Essex real izes that if he lives it wi ll on ly be to wrest the kingdom from the woman he loves. Both, however, have risen to hei ghts: El izabeth, the queen , has offered Essex her kingdom; and Essex has preferred the scaffol d rather than take it from her •••here is ev inced man 's bel ief in his own destiny.57

Such pl aywriting and devel opment of character , in Wall's view, made

Anderson take an Aristotel ian direction. Wal l was in direct contra- dic tion to Childs, Watts, and Tayl or, al l of whom came to a modern istic interpretation of Anderson 's work.

Not limiting himsel f to a purely cl assical or modern concept of tragedy in Anderson 's characters, Arthur T. Tees in North Dakota

Quarterly discussed the rol e of feminine superiori ty in the tri logy plays : Maxwel l An derson used women in maj or roles in several of his plays . In an age of women ' � liber�t � on ferme� t, it is of interest to determine how this prol 1f1c pl aywr ight depicted the fa ir sex in his dramas •••An derson treated his women characters fa vorably; they fare better than 93

th ••• eir . mal e counterparts he often portrayed women as super1or to men and saw them as pl ayi ng a pivotal rol e in the improvement of the human race. 58

According to Tees, Anderson assi gned to his femal e characters a spe­

cial status as a direct counter to an impl ied less subtle ten dency in his mal e characters.

Tees gave an ov erv iew of Anderson 's women characters in the

trilogy: "Three of his plays dealt with queen s and their manner of

- rule--the 'Tudor tr ilogy' of El i zabeth the Queen , Mary of Scotland,

and Anne of the Thousand Days . In each of thes e the queens are seen 59 as wiser than the men around them. 11 Tees showed how Essex comes

to his destruction through impetuosity and the betrayal by

El i zabeth. Through their mutual betrayal s Essex and El i zabeth

realize any love that they had must be sacrificed. What tragic

· signifi cance there is in the pl ay was not to be found with El i zabeth:

While in prison Essex •••co mes to real ize that he would never be content to al low El i zabeth to rule even though he knows her approach to be · superior; this disc.O­ very prompts him to refuse her offer of cl emency and go to his exec ut ion. Because the crucial sel f-discovery and decision are Essex ' rather than El i zabeth's, he thus becomes the central fi gure in traditional Ari stotel i an terms . 60

Using the Aristotel ian argument, Tees saw the tragic end come to

Ess ex. However , Tees devel oped another viewpoint more in keeping with the art icle's main contention, the ov erriding importance of the woman character : may al so be viewed as a dual Eli zabeth the Queen _ _ tragedy with El i zabeth making the fa teful dec 1 s1on when she rej ec t s Essex after learn ing that sh� would have �o • • • he at give up her power if sh: w�re to marry hi� � 1s best the heroine of a v1ct1m tragedy, den ied happrness, by 94

having been born in the royal line. Al though hers is a lonely fate, there can be no doubt of her superiority to the man who chall enged her throne.61

El izabeth shows that she can be the master over a man and still re tain her power as soverei gn ; yet in this. she 1 oses �ny chance at 1 ove with Essex' banishment and death. So in this "dua 1 tragedy" context of Tees ' El i zabeth al so undergoes sel f-di scovery ; but Tees felt El i zabeth is not a complete 'tragic character as is Essex.

El izabeth, in the fol lowing play Mary, al so appears as the most adept character ; yet she does not possess tragic stature from the strict�y Ari stotel ian standpoint : Eli zabeth appeared again three years later in Anderson 's Mary of Scotland. Once again she is not the prot a gonist but the antagonist, and once more she is shown to be pol itical ly more astute than the men aroun d her. Lord Burghley , in discussing the threat Mary poses to El izabeth's thron e and safety , advocates im1lediate armed intervention, but the cautious rul er has her own cl ever way of combatting the Northern threat. She tricks Mary into an unsatisfactory marriage, spreads ev il rumors about the Scottish soverei gn , and encourages those in the Highland court who woul d oppose the Cathol ic Queen. Her tactics are as effective as they are repul sive; in the final scen e she has the pleasure of confronting Mary in an Engl ish prison . 62

Here, El i zabeth displays her dupl icitous nature most effecti vely.

Mary is the tragic character in this play:

••• if Mary shows qual ities of an ideal rul er at the start of her rei gn , she displays apparent bad judgment in her choice of a husband. Warned in advance by Bothwel l that Darnley dr inks excessi vely and is no sui tabl e match ies him. The marria ge for her ' she neverthel ess marr rapidly deteriorates. Darnle� que�tions whether the child she carries is his. In due time his opp onents at court conspire to have him murdered wh i le throwing the bl ame for 63 his death on the Queen. 95

While El izabeth is insidious, Mary is too trusting and too eas ily

manipulated. According to Tees , Mary was Anderson 's most fully­

real ized character : "Mary's choice of a husband is cl early the turning point of the play. Anderson has given Mary se�eral motives

for her choice mak ing her the most complex character he had created

up 64 to that time. " The study of contrasts was best exempl ified in the final scene of the pl ay:

What had begun as a dis tant struggl e between two monarchs ends as an angry test of win between two women , and the suspicion grows that what Mary real ly wanted was not only to rul e her kindgom well, but more important , to tri umph over El izabeth as one woman to another. It gives Mary a human qual ity that makes her seem more real than the characters Anderson had created earl ier. By her par­ ticipation in the confrontat ion El i zabeth likewise achie'ieS a depth not general ly. seen in the pl aywright's work.65

In Mary Tees fel t Anderson created two very strong dramatic characters: one, very skilled in manipulation ; the other, wel l­

mean ing, but eas ily cozened by the farmer 's devious craft. Mary, in

Tees' view, ful fi ls the Ar istotel ian definition of tragedy, wh ile

El izabeth is a one-dimensional vil1 ainess. Anne in the final tr ilogy pl ay is dissimi l ar from El izabeth and Mary, in Tees ' estimation. There was more than just the wil ls of two stron g characters battl ing each other as there were in the first two pl ays :

The heroine of Anne of the Thousand Days is mar� s�c­ gh cessful as a character and a philosopher, al thou ,� is for A derson s own · questionabl e whether she is a spokesman � _ is capabl e of point of view. Like his earl ier queens, she t1o_ n between deep emotion, so much so that the confro�ta the most her and Hen ry at her trial for adul tery is 96

me�orable in al l of Anderson 's work, surpassing even the El1zabeth- Mary clash. It is al l the more powerfu l because it is both an intel l ectual and an emot ional con fl ict, a clash of person s and philosophies, of husband and wi fe, as wel l as of traditional Christianity and modern material ism. 66

Tees saw the confrontation of Anne and Henry as goi ng beyon d two

dramatic characters merely trying to gain supremacy. Tees found these characters representing larger forces and possessing phi lo­ sophical overtones :

The struggl e in Anne is not on ly between two strong­ willed persons but al so between · two philosophies. Henry sees the darker side of his own and others ' natures; for him it is the ani mal aspects of man 's nature that deter­ mine what a man does, where he loves. Anne, on the other hand, espouses a traditional Chris tian view.6 7

Tees al so gave attention to the more conventionally dramat ic el e­ ments in Anderson 's characters of Henry and Anne:

Both [characters] share equally in the thought and emotion of the scene, with Anne penetrating through Henry's rational ization and Henry ranging from ten derness to anger in his last meet ing with his queen . Henry, in fact, takes the emotional lead in the scene in confessing that he came there to fi nd out if his queen real ly had been unfai thfu l to him; he admits his vulnerabil ity at that point� He is al so the first to become angry later when Anne points out that his need for a new queen springs not so much from a desire for an heir as a thi rst for a fresh youn g girl as his bri de. 68

But Anne is Henry's equal in dramat ic interest: Anne matches Henry in range of emotion, from con­ fessing that she sti ll loves hi� t? ta�nting him at the end with a fa lse confession of 1nf1del 1ty that wi. ll leave him forever uncertain of the truth. But she al so matches him, bests him perhaps, in espousing an en during phi lo­ sophy. Given on e last :hance �o e��ape for her own past, a death that brings an inner 1 1 fe. 9 7

In the queens El izabeth, Mary, and Ann e, Tees found three very

complex, fully-dimensional , loving, yet determined women , each on e

possessing some tragic stature in the Aristotel ian sen se. Tees ,

however, was more concerned with their dem6n strated fi�esse compared

to their mal e counterparts. Tragedy was a secondary concern in the

article.

Thomas H. Dickinson al so sidestepped the issue of complete tragedy :

Because [Anderson ] is interested in the great aspirations and struggl es of men , he ten ds to choose for treatment those men and women whose aspirations have the widest social significance. So he finds the most fruitful material in the heroic fi gures wh ose exploits cover the beginnings of the modern democrat ic trad ition.70

Dickinson was attempt ing to analyze Anderson 's characters from a historical viewpoint. Dickinson named his choices of Anderson 's top achievemen ts in his pl aywriting career, al l history pl ays :

These are El izabeth the Queen , Mary of Scot l and, Joan of Lorraine [not incl uded in th is study], and Anne of the Thousand Days . Putting as i de for a moment the fact that I do not consider al l these equal ly successful , they are alike in that they employ the lives of great women as 71 source material into social or ganization.

Some of what Dickinson discussed paraJ lels Tees ' arti cle : men and women attain their en ds by different means--man often fal ls back on the viol ent and savage, woman uses "the principl e of accommodat ion 1 72 by the meet ing of wits, rather than the contests of brawn . 1 It was this aspect that made the main characters of the tri logy so co� pel ling to Dickinson. Tragedy was not the prime concern of the analysis in this articl e. 98

Other schol ars discussed Anderson 's perceived fa ilure to

achieve tragedy. Al lan G. Hal line in American Literature found that

Anderson could attain the outward signs of tragedy, as in this passage about El izabeth:

In this play there is a struggl e not on ly between the leading characters , El i zabeth and Essex, but al so within each as to which emot ion or ambition shall be soverei gn ; unquestionably these characters are exceptional persons; their struggl es may eas ily be viewed in terms of good and evi l, and both have qual itjes which people admire. Then , too, there is the recogn ition scene in which the protago­ nist makes an important discovery; that he who would rule must be without friends, mercy , love. In the foregoing respects� the play measures up to the specifications for t ragedy. 13

However, Hal line did ·not feel that Anderson had succeeded in creat- ing true tragedy :

But , in the mai n, it fal ls wel l short of the ideal tragedy. El izabeth, having ma de the discovery, is not changed for the better, in fact, she determines to take Essex's life. There is no inward ennobl ement to offset her fa ilure in love •••Essex loses both his love and his life, and there is no indication of a compensating philosophic outlook, or spiri tual growth •••man is here a victim of 74 circumstances , and life is fatally ironic.

To Hal line, then , An derson did not en dow El i zabeth with the requisite stature for her to be tragic in the Aristotel ian sense of the term.

John Gassner al so fel t that An derson could attain the appearance of tragic forms but not the actual content needed for tra gedy: Having set himsel f the hi gh obj ect ive of wri ting tra gedy, Anderson has oft en created the simula:rum ra� her than the real articl e. The formal and synthet ic qual ity, not ·always apparent wh i le the theatrical spel l of a good 99

product ion is upon us , ultimately reveals itself in a variety of ways . Thus, his traditional philosophy of tragedy make him take an exalted view of human strivings and gives his leading characters a certain nobility of spirit in a cri sis or a denouement. 15

Anderson 's characters seemed, to Gassner, too obviousiy man ipulated ,

rather than having been defeated due to an internal weakness in and

of themselves :

Oft en •••the undoing ·of a character is the res ult of a conspiracy (see Eli zabeth the ueen , Mary of Scotland, Anne of the Thousand Days rather than the effect of a grave fl aw in that character wh ich affords insight into the abysses of human nature. The point of .v i ew that emerges concerning the characters, the historical situation, man 's destiny or the nature of his world, is always forcefully expressed in Anderson 's tragedies and yet seems a formal conc lusion, like the conclusion in a Eucl idean proposition set up for the purpose.76

The hand and thinking of the pl aywright , to Gassn er, seemed too much

of an obvious presence in the play. Con sequently, they came across as bel abored and with a somewhat didactic qual ity.

Arthur M. Sampley in Col l ege Engl ish fa ulted Anderson for what he label ed the pl aywri ght 's "oversimpl ification" which "mars

Mary of Scotland. Mary Stuart ' is here romanticized unt il she becomes hardly a historical person at al l; the real Mary was infin­ 1177 itely more complex •••much more interesting. Elizabeth al so becomes distorted, according to Sampley's view: "Conversely,

El izabeth is transformed into a Machiavel lian of quite impossible lords are little more fiendishness •••Mora y and the Protestant 78 than stage vill ains. 11 The total effect was not tragedy, stated

Samp 1 ey : 100

The play thus ceases in large mea sure to be a dramatiza­ tion of life and becomes a romantic mel odrama . In achieving cl arity and el iminating complexity, Mr. Anderson has sacrifi ced that internal cl ash of personal ity wh ich the greatest masters of drama have revea led. 79

Because of this perceived lack of diversity in Mary's character ,

Sampley did not feel that she attains tragic stature : "Though Mary

of Scotland is a brave and tender woman , she lacks the infinite ,). . variety which Shakespeare's Cl eopatra has and which the real Mary 80 Stuart likewise abundantly possessed. 11 Mel odramatic simpl ifi ca­ tion and a lack of complexity in the characters, stated Sampl ey , were the ha 11mar ks of Mary of Scotland.

Sunmary

Schol ars differed in thefr assessments of t�e trilogy pl ays . as examples of tragedy . To some, Anderson refl ected much of the despair and al ienation of the twentieth century so ev ident in much writing and in theatre. "Circumstance" and "attrition" were used by two writers to expl ain An derson 's modern tragedy. According to these viewpoi nts , Anderson 's characters were seen to struggl e against outside and impersonal forces rather than combatting an internal weakness and undergoing a resultant sel f-recognition.

Rather than the characters br inging tragedy to themsel ves, it was conten ded, tragedy is brought to them. One scholar stated that I

Anderson was a modern writer, but on e who did keep to the ol d classical tragic forms. Another recognized some tragic el ements, but the study of woman 's respon se to situation was given pri macy , 10 1

especial ly in relation to male counterparts. Still another schol ar

analyzed the issue of woman 's superiority from a historical

background.

The major fault attributed to Anderson in some schol arly

conmentary was a perceived inability to wr ite tragedy. It was

expressed that Anderson could attain the appearance of tragedy .

However, on cl oser analysis,. scholars thought Anderson could not sustain character with genuine.. sel f- recognition and a resulting

spiritual/emotional rel ease that they· considered necessary hal l marks

of tragedy. The schol arly consensus here was that Anderson '�

characters did not seem to be fully-dimensional ; they appeared too

theatrical ly manipulated in their. actions by the playwright. Al so, . concern was expressed over characters being historically dis torted

due to the demands of dramatic structure.

Plot and Structure

Here the schol ars often cited plays ot her than just the

trilogy or el se summarized their judgments in general ized commentary that named no sp ecific pl ays. References to the tri logy plays were made, and the study wil 1 ut i lize these and some of the summarized judgments of schol ars.

Some scholars gave brief descriptions of Anderson 's skill in t he basics of play con structi on . These scholars found Anderson as havi ng possessed a wi de- range of accompl i shment in playwriting .

Vincent Wal l wrote: " •••as a craftsman [Anderson] has wr itten in 102

several different mediums [sic] ranging from prose real ism to poet ic 81 tra gedy. " Later in the same article Wal l recounted Anderson 's

variety of accompl i shments more spec ifically: "He has tried his

hand at mel odrama, real ism, poet ic· tragedy, comedy farce, and comedy

drama . He has had the courage to revive dramat ic forms wh ich have

not been used successfully since the closing of theaters in 82 o 1642. 11 Thomas H. Dickinson al s recalled Anderson 's achievements

u in drama : "His plays run the gamut fr m the hard imaginative

art i stry of Eli zabeth the Queen and Mary of Scotland, to folk drama,

musicaJ tragedies and domestic comed ies. 1183 Finally, Homer F. Woodbridge briefly discussed Anderson 's attainments and fel t that he

had succeeded in on e particul ar dramat ic con struction: "[Anderson ]

had experimented with the poetic drama, the real istic pl ay, the

mel odramat ic pl ay, and the thesis pl ay, and had gained conspicuous 84 success in on 1 y on e of the genres, the rea 1istic.11 Anderson 's

dexteri ty in dramat ic con struction was considered to be wide­ ranging; he di d not limit himsel f exclusively to any one dramatic form.

Woodbri dge continued by discussing Anderson 's devel opment in play construction with the history plays : "[Anderson] learned to ial th s impli fy and clarify his story, just because the mat er s wi pl ification was whi ch he was deal ing were so complex that severe sim 85 economy in plot and necessary. 11 From this, Anderson had devel oped e of those story pl ays structure: "[Anderson] has wr itten no mor mited himsel f to fewer overstuffed with situations; he has li 103

86 situations, more fu lly devel oped. " In Woodbr idge's analysis

Anderson 's pl ay construction benefitted from econom ic wr iting and

the avoidance of excessive historical detailing.

Howev 1 er, Anderson s plots woul d not satisfy ev.eryone, stated Woodbridge, especial ly historians who would demand complete histori­ cal accuracy :

· The historians, of co urse are not satisfied with these history p l ays ; but have they ev er been satisfied with any good history pl ays ? Like al l romantic drama­ tists, Mr. Anderson is indifferent to minor anachron isms and inaccuracies. In more serious matters, too , Mr. Anderson feel s at 1 iberty to modify and interpret hi story as he chooses. So did Shakespeare, so does Mr . Shaw in our time. It is the pl aywright 's prerogative and we can dismiss the obj ections of the historians as irrel evant. 87

It was proper for al l playwrights to be concerned with the demands

of dramatic structure rather than to give complete subserv ience to

historical detail ; to Woodbri dge the latter seemed secon dary.

However, Woodbridge did ac knowl edge one historical fact that

proved too large to be completely subdued by dramat ic imperative:

[El izabeth] is dramat ical ly effective and poetical ly honest and sound, and the scen es between El i zabeth and Essex are fi rmly and strongly handl ed. The difficul ty is that Mr. An derson run s into a historical fact too wel l known for him to venture to change it--the wide difference in age between El i zabeth and Essex. This makes it hard to , in the genuineness of bel ieve' as the play requires us to Essex•s love of the Queen . Mr . An derson 's mistake perhaps was in ideal izing the character of Essex , and ma king him much more honest and sincere than he was. He woul d have done better to show Essex as a bri lliant adventurer whose \'las a pretense. El izabeth's tra edy love for the Queen g8 woul d then have been less theatrical but more real .

Where the fi rst play demon strated some probl ems in coping with y owed history in dramatic structure, Woodbri dge bel ieved Mar sh 104

Anderson 's growth in the ab ili ty to handle the chall enges posed by

historical material to plot and structure: c . Mary of Scotland is distin tly a fi ner and stron ger p1ece. of work •••Mr . Anderson had learned one thing by the tl e he wrot � e Mary of Scotland wh ich he never fully recogn ized before, the power of restra int. More than once in the play, when the situation mi ght seem to justify a long and viol ent speech, he gives to the character con­ cerned on ly a few tel ling words. 89

Econo"lY, then restraint, were the two stren gths Woodbridge fel t best

exemplified Anderson 's plot and structure in the history plays.

Anderson 's ability grew ev en more with plays that fol l owed the first two in ·the trilogy: 11There is a gain • in the steadiness and sureness with which the story advances ; the playwri ght seems now to 90 have fully mastered the art of plotting. 11

Arthur M. Sampley initially faulted Anderson for having written a "mel odramatic pl ot" for his "formula of tragic weakness 91 fol l owed by sel f-di scovery. 11 Al though this seemed to have created some structural confusion in Anderson 's work, to Sampl ey, Anderson 's

"formula" could be used to good effect :

••• the formula, properly devel oped, is capabl e of pro­ ducing plays of substantial worth, as a gl ance at Mr. Anderson 's more notable efforts will reveal . The Aristotel ian design, reveal s, indeed, a qual ity o� the subl ime. In some of his plays Maxwel l Anderson gives the promise of this grandeur, and in a few • • • �1 s work represents not so much promise as fulfilment.

When Anderson did fulfil Ari stotel ian standards, stated Sample , his work could attain greatness. Among schol ars cited here, Sampley's conrnent came the cl osest to negative analysis on Anderson 's devel op- ment of plot and structure. 105

Surnnary

Anderson was credited with success as a technical craftsman

due to his playwri ting in a wi de range of dramatic forms . With this

backgroun d in a variety of accompl ishments , An derson created what

schol ars considered were the wel l-crafted trilogy pl ays. In the

opinion of several schol ars, these pl ays showed Anderson 's best

progression of technical expertise in pl ay construction. Some al l�

sion was made to An derson 's "Aristotel ian" infl uence in plot and

structure in the trilogy, but mostly in a brief and indirect manner.

Anderson 's main overall strengths exe·mpl ified in the tril ogy pl ays ,

it was . stated, we1e structural econ omy and a lack of completr rel iance on exact historical deta il. Anderson was seen instead as

devel oping his own dramatic cont exts with history, thus making his

plays successful . Subsequently, it was judged, Anderson coul d

· create a bel ievable historical and dramat ic atmosphere in each of

his pl ays . Except for some uncomfortabl e moments caused by histori­

cal circumstance, An derson was judged to have served both his

historical and dramatic demands wel l.

Themes for the Modern Audience derson 's thernati c deve op­ The corTJTlentary by scho 1 ars on An 1

ment was generally not extensive. Theme was not considered in the

analyses of most schol ars. Much of what was mentioned on theme was

done in a passing manner, al though four scholars later in this

section will be seen to have been exceptions. 106

Homer E. Woodbri dge very briefly mentioned Anderson 's thema­

tic devel opment in his verse dramas. Woodbri dge thought Anderson 's

" intention was : . . . the passionate des ire to treat high and di f- 3 ficul t themes in the manner they deserve. 11� Another . a 11-

enc ompassing, but non- specific, reference came from William E. · Tayl or : "[Anderson] wrote plays· that dealt with what he bel ieved ' 94 were the permanent, the uni versal themes ." Woodbridge and Taylor

apparently assumed that others· knew what "hi gh and difficult" and

"permanent ••• uni versal 11 themes were, as they did not name them •

. Other schol ars did express the ideas that they though:

Anderson was att empt ing to convey. Vincent Wal l referred to

Eli zabet h in terms of Anderson 's bel ief in some higher purpose in

man: "In this p 1 ay • Anderson gives fu ller voice to his convic-

· tion that there is in men some dim, indestructibl e bel ief that

whatever the conduct of the rat- men may be, a lost cause is better ·

11. ecific theme Wa 11 mention than no cause at a 1195 The sp ed was the

rol e of temporal power in characters ' fates: " •••wh at Anderson

is essential ly trying to do is dramat ize the destroying power of

power. It is a pitch that defiles al l who touch it. It brings 96 about the destruction of the Earl of Essex, of Mary of Scotland.11

Wal l stated that Anderson showed power to be a corrosive and a

destroying el ement to the characters portrayed.

John Gassner thought Anderson was not overt in devel oping

theme: "An derson •••e xercised considerabl e caution by 9 7 Th ese themes were encroaching upon themes gradua 11y. " 10_7

98 " •••bitte r commentary on pol itical chicanery. 11 Thomas H.

Dickinson al so fou_nd pol itical themes in the trilogy pl ays: "Al l

are concerned with probl ems of government. In these plays we find a

veritabl e catalogue of the arts and crafts that enter into the �rac­ 99 tice of the civic life on its higher pl anes. 11 Gov ernment affects

those characters who · are to rule; this was the central concern of

Anderson 's historical pl ays and characters : "One· of the first

issues faced by the man or woman who woul d serve as agent for the

purposes of the state concerns the completeness of the iden­ 100 tification of pri vate interest and publ ic function.11 Temporal power dec ided the characters ' fates. Dickinson expl ained the rel e­ vancy of that theme in the more contemporary experience:

It is when we come to the question, "What is truth?" that we reach the un i versal di lerrrna in the jungl e of stat e­ craft . It can be said for Anderson that the •••pl ays mentioned are storehouses of insights and example into the complexities of the very modern struggl e of freedom and power , of sel fishness and otherness. IOI

Henry G. Lee al so examined Anderson 's theme of temporal power in the trilogy:

[Anderson 's] general ized theme was the cal l ousness which inevi tably accompani es pol itical power. El i zabeth the Queen was fol l owed by a long line of romantic history plays in verse with generaliz ed themes . Power lust was again explored in Mary of Scotland {1933 ); and Anne of the Thousan d Days ( 1948) comp leted a Tudor tri ogy 102 1 . Another , mentioning power as a theme, was Winifred L. Dusenbury in

Modern Drama , who stated that pol itical power was part of an ongoing process: 108

In Elizabeth the Queen and in Mary of Scotl and, he ev inces an understanding of the anc ient process of the struggl e for power which caused Shakespeare to wr ite on e his tory play after another , ill ustrat ing the murder of a king the rise of a new, the death of that king, and the rise o a new in a never- en ding cycl e.10 3 f

Dusenbury emphasized the transitory nature of power to wh ich

Anderson 's characters were subj ected. To this scholar, it repre­

sented a common theme in Anderson-' s work.

Arthur Tees took a different approach in analyz ing theme in Anderson 's work. His pl ays, Tees expJ ained, portrayed a corruption of power and . its direct result: "Legal injustice and poetic justice 104 are the rul e in Anderson 's pl ays . 11 Throughout his article Tees

discussed the idea of judicial perversion. Anne, for one, is a vie-

tim of inj ustice: In Anne of the Thousand Days (1948) the Queen is tried for adul tery. She is convicted on the testimony of Smeaton who perj ures himsel f under torture. This inju stice rebounds on the king, however, for having heard Smeaton 's testi mony, Henry won ders if it mi ght be true aft er al � . To taunt him, Anne corroborates Srneaton 1 s story, forcing Henry to question the witness further unt il it bec omes obvious that Smeaton is lying. Neverthel ess, an innocent victim is sentenced to die in a miscarriage of courtroom justice.105

Anne's attainment of eventual poet ic justice is at the expense of the corrupting temporal power that was wi el ded by Henry. Tees and the ot her schol ars cited here saw Anderson 's theme of pol itical power as corruptton. 109

Sumnary

Theme in the trilogy was not di scussed at as great a length or in as much detai by schol . 1 ars as wa s Anderson 's verse ' characte. r ' and plot and structure devel opment. A few scholars made vague overall references about An derson 's use of nobl e and unnamed themes that assumed readers ' knowl edge of their ident ity.

Schol ars who were specific in their comments expl ained

Anderson 's themat ic devel opment in terms of pol itical power in government and statecraft , that finally man ifests itsel f in corrup­ tion. · The characters in al l the pl ays, went this schol arly cun sen- sus, are in some way · affected by and suffer from corrupt pol itical power. Lives are lost, peopl e are tortured, and justice is moc ked because of pol itical machinations and manipulation of the pol itical process. One scholar found some good above the overall pessimistic outlooks cited by most writers: al though corruption seemingly wins, poetic justice is attained by on e character at the expense of that corruption.

Summary and Conclusions on Chapter IV

Anderson 's dramat ic verse was very stron gly endorsed by scholars who liked the lan guage of his plays. The verse Anderson had composed was noted for its simpl icity of style and lack of ornateness. This was attribut ed to an uncomplicated verse techn ique that was discussed. Schol ars thought that the verse was expressive and that it revived interest in verse drama for the modern stage. 110

Al though he wrot'e verse, Anderson 'a language was judged not to be

esoteric; therefore, it was understandable to a general theatre

audience. A majority of schol ars . expressed a great admiration for

Ander son 's work and fel t that he had created a viabl e verse drama in

his own unique styl e. Other scholars fel t that Anderson tried too

hard to appear literate; this gave the verse a fal se qual ity.

Dramatic verse in general , and Arrderson 's in particular, was found

to be archaic and to have no place in the modern theatre. Anderson

was perceived as wasting his pl aywriting tal ents on an irrel evant

dramat ic form. His wr iting of dramat ic verse on ly rei nforced its

old stereotypes, according to this viewpoint. Scholars en dorsing

his verse came very close to what Anderson had expressed. In the

dramatic theory , Anderson stated that the modern theatre needed the

verse drama. This became one of his central contentions. Anderson

and some of his schol arly critics operated on the same premise:

there was a pl ace for the verse drama on the modern stage.

Character devel opment and tragedy , spec ifi cal ly as Anderson had created them, garnered the most commentary from schol ars and

indicated where schol ars most often disagreed among themselves. It was establ ished by schol ars that Anderson wrote tragedy. The tragedy

as written did not , however, mean that it necessarily was of the

Aristotel ian genre. Schol ars stated that "circumstance" tragedy and

"attrition" tragedy represented a "modern " tragic form that Anderson had wr itten. Still other schol ars found tragedy a secondary el ement in the analys is of character devel opment. Rather , the act ions, 111

motivations, and historical background, el ements aside from tragedy ,

were dis cussed. In the en d, Aristotel ian tragic dev el opment was

separately and indirectly recogn ized in on ly a few comments.

Opposing schol ars specifically stated that Anderson had failed in

writing tragedy . An derson was capabl e of attaining the appearance

of tragedy, they wrote; but upon cl oser examinat ion his characters

did not possess tragic stature. Either the pl aywright's cl umsy hand

seemed to force the characters ' actions or mel odrama resulted.

Schol ars did find tragedy, but the consensus amon g themsel ves was

divergent as to what kind Anderson had wr itten.

With schol ars who analyzed character devel opment, a change

·was evident. Earl ier schol arly a.rt icles had considerable comment

about what sort of tragedy Anderson had wr itten. The issue of

tragedy diminished in the later articles, schol ars ten ded to di scuss

and analyze the characters less on the signifi cance of their tragic

suffering. Topics such as El izabeth 's, Mary's, and Anne's feminine

superiority and their rol es in history were discussed by scholars

who were not so interested in tragic dimension.

Schol arly commentary on plot and structure had several cita­

tions of Anderson 's many accompl ishments in various dramatic forms.

Because of this wide range of pl ot and structural el ements, Anderson

earned much favorable criticism by scholars. Scholars stated that

Anderson wrote stron g pl ots that mov ed the pl ays forward in a simple and direct manner. Anderson , it was stated, did not insert con­ fusing twists and turn s of plot which might slow down the dramatic 112

action. Some structural dis tortion was caused by historical deta il; however, this was a mino r point. Anderson was very brief about plot and structure devel opment in his theory ; however, he di d imply that propter hoc construct ion was best for pl a�rit i ng. Of1e reference was made in the schol arly cr iticism about Anderson 's Aristotel ian

design in on e of the pl ays. Scholars ' propensity for Aristotel ian

construction, as briefly advocated by Anderson , was proven

indirectly by their endorsement of wel l-made plot and structura l devel opment in the trilogy.

Scholars tended to mention theme briefly in comparison to the amount of analysis they gave to verse, character, and plot/structure. Except for scholars who made vague references to theme, spec ific thema ic ident ification centered exclusively on tenr­ poral power and some man ifestat ion of it. Scholars therefore touched upon the concern about theme represented by the struggl e of good and evil that Anderson previously discussed. Both Anderson and some of his scholarly critics ident ified closely with the idea of stron g centra l themes for specific plays.

Anderson, however , took a larger view about the ov erall need for effecti ve themes for drama in general. Scholars did not address this point. FOOTNOTES

. 1 · Harlan Hatcher, "Drama in Verse: Anderson , El iot, MacLeish," Engl ish Journal 25 (J a.nuary 1936), p. 1. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. , 2. P • 4 Ibid. , P• 4. 5 1 bid. 6 Ibid. , P• 5. 7 Ibid. , p. 6 . 8 Phi lip Steven son , "Maxwel l Anderson : Thursday's Child, " �ew Theatre, 31 September 1936, p. 7. 9 Ibid. , p. 25. lO i bid. 1 1 R uth Woodbury Sedgwick , "Maxwel l Anderson , 11 Stage, October . 1 936 , p. 56. 1 2 Ibid. 13 Ibid.

14 Woodbri dge, "Maxwel l Anderson , " South Atl antic tt omer E. Quarterly, 44 (J anuary 1945), p. 59. 15 Ibid. 16 . Ibid. , p . 60 1 7 Ibid. 18 Ibid. 1 9 Henry G. Lee, 11Maxwel 1 Anderson • s Impact on the Theatre, 11 5 50. North Dakota Quarterly 25 (Spring 19 7), P • 0 2 1 bid. , p. 51. 114

21 william E. Tayl or, "Maxwel l An derson : Traditional ist in a Theatre of Change," Modern American Drama : Essa s in Criticism (Del and, Fl orida: · Everrett/Edwards 1968 56. Inc. , , p. 22 Ibid. 23 vincen t Wall, "Maxwel l An derson : · The Last Anarchist," Sewanee Review Quarterly 49 (J uly-September 1941), p. 340. 24 Ibid. , p. 341. 25 Ibid. p. 348. 26 John Gassner, "Anchors Awei gh: Maxwel l Anderson and Tennessee Williams," Theatre nme 1 (Spring 1949), p. 8. 2 7 Ibid. 28 Ibid. , p. 11. 29 Ibid. JO Edmund Wil son , "Prize-Winning Bl ank Verse," New Republ ic, 23 June 1937, p. 194. 31 Ibid. 3 2 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 oonna Gerstenberger , "Verse Drama in America, 11 Modern Drama 6 (December 1963), pp . 316-31 7. 35 Ibid. 36 H erbert El l sworth Childs, "Play goer 's Playwright : Maxwel l Anderson," Engl ish Journal 26 (J une 1938), P· 481. 37 Ibid. 38 Jbid. 39 1 bid. 0 4 Ibid. , P• 483.

41 Ibid. 115

42 Ibid. 43 Harol d H. Watts, "Maxwel l An derson : The Tragedy of Attrition," Col lege Engl ish 4 (J anuary 1943), p . 221. 44 Ibid. 4 5 Ibid. , p. 223. 46 Ibid. 4 7 Ibid. , p. 224. 48 1 bid. 49 Ibid., p. 325. 50 rayl or, op. cit., p. 48. 5 1 Ibid. , p. 49. 52 Ibi d. 53 wal l, op. cit., p. 343 • . 54 1 bid. , p. 344. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. , p. 346. 5 7 Ibid. S8 Arthur T. Tees , "Maxwel l Anderson 's Liberated Women , 11 North Dakota Quarterly 42 (Spring 1974), p. 53. 59 Ibid. , p. 54. 60 1 bid. 61 Ibid. 6 2 , 54- 55. Ibid. PP • 6 3 1bid. , p. 55. 64 Ibid. 65 , 5 -57. Ibid. PP • 6 116

66 Ibid., 5 7. P· 6 7 Ibid., p� 58. 68 Ibid. , pp. 57-58. 69 Ibid. , p. 58. 70 Thomas H. Dickinson, "The Theatre of Maxwel l Anderson , " Theatre Ttme 2 (Spring 1950 ) , p � 94. 7l Ibid. 72 Ibid., pp. 94- 95 . 73 Al lan G. Halline, "Maxwel l .Anderson 's Dramatic Theory, " American Literature 16 (May 1944 ), p. 72 . 74 Ibid. , pp . 72- 73 . 75 . Gassner, op. cit., pp . 10-11. 76 Ibid. , p. 11. 7 7Arthur M. Sampley, "Theory and Practice in Maxwel l Anderson 's Poetic Tragedy," College Engl ish 5 (May 1944), p. 413. 78 1 bid. , pp. 413-414. 79 Ibid. , p. 414. 80 1 bid. 81 wal1, op. cit. , p. 340. 82 1 b id., p. 367. 83 oickinson, op. cit., P• 93. 84 woodbridge, op. cit. , P· 59. 85 Ibid. , p. 60. 8 6Ibid. 8 7 Ibid. , PP · 80-81. 88 1 bid. , p. 61. 117

89 Ibid. , p. 62. 90 1 bid. 91 Sampley, op . cit. p. 4 14 . 92 Ibi d. 93 w 8 oodbridge, p. 6 . 94 Tayl or, p. 57. 95 Wa 11, p. 356. 96 Ibid. , p. 364. 9 7 Gassner, p. 8. 98 Ibi d. 99 oickinson,_ p. 95. lOO i bi d. lOl l bid. 102 Lee , op . cit. , p. 50. 103 w ini fred L. Dusenbury, "Myth in American Drama Between the Wars, 11 Modern Drama 6 (December 1 963 ) , p. 29 7. 104 Arthur T. Tees , "Legal and Poetic Justice in Maxwel l Anderson ' ·s Plays," North Dakota Quarterly 38 (Winter 1 970), p. 25. lOS l bid. , p. 27.

, CHAPTER V

COMP-ARI SONS, CONTRASTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Comparison s and Contr�sts Among Reviewer�, Schol ars and Anderson 's Theory

Poetry for the Modern Audience

Anderson had more succes� among scholars than with reviewers

in the critical reception of bis dramat ic verse. Reviewers were

either very guarded or open ly di ssati.sfied with Anderson 's wr iting.

Schol ars, on the other hand, reacted very favorably. The need for a

verse drama . in modern theatre was recogn ized by schol ars, but this

was not the case with most revi ewers. The analyses of the verse by

schol ars went deeper than that of revi ewers, but scholarly reception

to the verse had its hostile side as wel l. To these scholars the

verse appeared, at best, not nobly insp i red and more an academic

exercise, or , at worst , archaic and usel ess in the modern theatre.

Anderson expressed the need for verse drama in modern

theatre. Some schol ars al so expressed this need and found

Anderson 's verse a hel p in reviving this dramatic form. Amon g

revi ewers, the negative reception, though a minority view, was

strong. An derson 's efforts were, concluded both reviewers and

schol ars, not enough to begin the "gol den age" in vers e that

Anderson wanted. J

119

Tragedy--Aristotel ian Infl uences on Anderson 's Concepts of Character, Plot and Structure

In analyzing An derson 's characters, historical aspects and

dramatic el ements other than tragic definition seemed · to count more

amont the revi ewers. Some revi ewers proved di ss_atisfied with the

characters because historical tragedy seemed irrel evant in the

modern age. Schol ars stated that Anderson had created a modern

tra gedy ·ror the modern theatre-. However, scho 1 ars wi th a negative

view faulted Anderson for having not written tragedy •

. Anderson wrote that he wished to see a resurgent tragedy

_ based on the precepts of Aristotle's Poetics. The reception of re­ viewers and schol ars to Anderson 's tragic vision was varied.

Reviewers either refused to accept the works as _tragedy or stat ed

that tragedy as a form was not rel evant to the times� Schol ars

stat ed that An derson had written tragedy, but their definition of

tragedy was not limited exclusively to the classical . Both

revi ewers and schol ars wrote more about the character devel opment in the plays than of the other aspects of Anderson 's pl aywriti ng. In

either case, the perception of critics concerning the plays differed

from Anderson 's intentions as he set them down in his theory.

Most critical appraisal noted that the plot and structural

elements of the trilogy plays had much that was commendabl e.

Reviewers and schol ars recogn ized the wel l-craft ed con struction of

Ander son 's three plays. · Anderson 's pl ays were noted for telling their stories simply, clearly, and without adornment. Scholars went . 120

beyond merely stat ing that the_ tr ilogy pl ays were wel l-crafted.

Anderson 's ability to write in dramat ic forms other than verse was seen as an asset to his dramatic construction ski lls. This attested

to Anderson 's growth as a pla_y\-Jright . However, some r·evi ewers men­

tioned that there was an absence of tragic inevitability in the

three plays. Another complaint was the preceived inability of

Anderson to maintain the dramatic intensity from earl ier to later scenes. Con densing the historical material was deemed by some to

cause prob l ems for Anderson ; however , other schol ars not ed that the loss of some historical el ements was not really a drawback. Rat her ,

the critics hel d that the dramat ic context was more important than

complete historical accuracy. Along wi th Anderson , revi ewers and

schol ars favored the Aristotel ian propter hoc plot and structura l

· devel opment. Al though such expl icit expression of this theory came

from neither An derson nor his cr itics, its application ill ustrates

ng the oervaI sive infl uence of Ari stotle on playwriti and dramatic

critic i srri.

Themes for the Modern Audience

In compari son to their analyses of verse and character devel­

opment, rev i ewers and scholars gave rel ati vely little attention to

theme. Those rev i ewers and scholars who commented on theme tended

toward short cornnents and cursory judgments. Some critics mentioned

"theme" and fa iled to disclose what they determined it to be.

However, within both groups of cri tics, the opinion as to what the 121

themes of the plays were came to unanimity or close to it.

Reviewers thought love was the pri mary theme with temporal power as

a secondary on e. Scholars stated that temporal power was the

central theme in the plays, and the scholars ten ded toward longer

discussions about theme than did their rev i ewer counterpa�ts.

Discussion of temporal power touched upon the concern of good and

evil that Anderson mentioned shoul d be a part of thematic

devel opment.

Final Conclusions

Maxwel l Anderson 's announced goal was to see verse tragedy

devel op, grow, and become an accepted convention in the modern

American theatre. Anderson was going against an entrenched tradi­

tion of prose in the theatre of his time where mel odramas, comedies,

and musical s were the dominant output of most dramatists.

Reviewers took the most visible line of ov eral l res istance to Anderson 's three verse plays as verse tragedies. As a whol e, what success revi ewers saw in the trilogy was not attributed to

Anderson 's ab il ities as a poet or tragedian. Instead, the plays were seen to be good because of the use of historical material and exciting story lines with romantic characters in interesting set­ tings � Because rev i ewers were wri ting from memory of a performance after a dash to the typewriter, a possibility exists that such points as the beauty of the verse and the tragic fates of characters were overlooked in favor of more obv ious theatrical el ements. In 122

most reviews , the verse was not thought to be particularly

outstanding nor the characters tragic. Al though the plays were con­

sidered to be wel l-written, the revi ewers ei ther failed to detect or to consider sufficiently important the qual ities that Anderson

discussed in his theory.

Anderson came from an intel lectual background and had taught

Engl ish literature. He became a contributor to several publ ications

by wri ting poetry and book rev i ews for magazines and newspapers.

Eventual ly, Anderson became a pl aywri ght. Having studied and taught

the great masters of poetry and literature to students, Anderson

possessed a deep appreciation for what those writers had

accompl i shed. As reveal ed ·i n his dramat ic theory, Anderson was very dissatisfied with twentieth century wr iting. Anderson aspi red to

the subl ime in wr iting verse tragedy for the modern stage.

Reviewers probably did not share Anderson 's ent husi asm for

the nobil ity of poetry and tragic suffering; or , if they did, they

real ized that most of their readers and most modern pl aygoers did

not. Schol ars, on the other hand, were intel l ectual s and professors

of literature as were many of their readers. They shared Anderson 's

background and were, no doubt, more attuned to what Anderson was

attempting to accompl i sh. Anderson ' s rel ationship with his rev i ewer and schol arly critics earned him admirers, detractors, and observers with more moderate viewpoints concern ing his playwriting. To his critics,

Ander son was interesting because he was a sel f-proclaimed verse 123

dramatist who attempted to write tragedy al ong Aris totel ian guide­

lines for a mass theatre audience. This made him an exception to

contemporary American playwrights.· Anderson 's verse and his tragic

characters el icited much commentary and stron g argument . Reviewer

criticism obv iously antagon ized Anderson at times : he publ ished two

essays that attacked what he perceived to be their lack of careful

scrutiny and exclusive power. of determination over the success of a

play or its demise on the stage. Anderson publ icly aired the

frustration most writers have experienced ov er critical reception of

their work; yet he did not rej ect al l criticism-- scholarly criticism

was not at issue in his respon ses.

The impact Anderson had on theatre was more apparent during

his pl aywriting years than subsequently. The advent of a new verse

· play by Anderson always caught the attent ion of critics and audiences

al ike. Al l of the trilogy pl ays were, in the main, successful with

the critics and even more so with audiences. Each of the plays had

long run�. Rev i ewers proved not to be the serious determinant to

failure that Anderson assumed. Stil l, rev iewers were often harsher

in their criticism than were scholars overall; they also seemed

less incl ined to val ue the theoretical el ements that Anderson

reverred. Anderson failed to establ ish a verse tradition in modern

American theatre • . Those reviewers who received Anderson 's eff rts

with on ly luke warm approval shoul d perhaps bear a measure of the

burden for this fa ilure. Anderson 's legacy of verse drama nonethe­

less constitutes nearly the whole of plays wh ich may be label ed 124

"verse drama" or "verse tragedy" written for the twentieth century

American theatre. Except for the modestly received few works of

T. S. El iot and Christopher Fry, n� verse plays were as widely

received by American critics and audiences as were those of

Anderson . The theatre for which Anderson wrote, ·however, did not

encoura ge verse or tragic drama--the combination of a prose tradi­ _ tion, the hostil ity that much of the revi ewer cri ticism expressed

for his verse, pl us the lack of consideration concern ing the

trilogy'stra gic nature refl ected an unwillingness to have verse

tragedy" thrive.

The trilogy,· the other verse pl ays , and the bal ance of

Anderson 's work were no smal l achievement for one playwright .

Anderson was a maj or presence in the theatre of his day and his

plays continue to cause discussion among those interested in

American theatre. Whether or not he was a great poet and tragedian,

Maxwel l Anderson proved that he was an accompl i shed man of the theatre and a very successful writer of plays, al l of wh ich earned him the respect, if not the complete acceptance and encoura gement, of most theatre critics and audiences. LIST OF SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

Book s

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____• Off Broadway: Essays about the Theater. New York: William Sloane Associates, 1947.

Bailey, Mabel Driscol l. Maxwel l Anderson : Playwr ight as Prophet. Freeport: N.Y. : Books for Libraries Press, 1970.

Breed, Paul Francis, an d Florence M. Sni derman. Dramatic Criticism Index. Detroit: Gale Res ea�ch Company, 1972.

Clark, Barrett H. Maxwel l Anderson : The Man and His Plays . New York: Samuel French, 1933.

Col eman , Arthur, and.Gary R. Ty ler. Dramat ic Criticism. Denver: A. Swal l ow, 1966.

Cox, Martha H. Maxwell Anderson Bibl i ography. Charlottesville, Virginia: Bibl iographical Soc i ety, Un iversity of Virginia, 1958.

Dembo, L. s. Criticism: Speculative and Analyt ical Essays. Madison, Wisconsin: The Uni versity of Wisconsin Press, 1968.

Dukore, Bernard F. Dramatic Theory and Criticism: Greeks to Grotowsk i. New York : Holt Rinehart & Winston , Inc. , 1974 �

Shivers, Al fred s . Maxwel l Anderson . Boston : Twayne Publ ishers, 1976.

Tayl or, William, ed. Essays in Modern Literary Criticism. Del and, Florida : Everrett/Edwards, Inc. , 1968 .

West, Ray B. , ed. Essays in Modern Literary Criticism. New York: any, Inc. , 1952. Rinehart & Comp

Journ als ss." North Dakot a B uchanan, Randal l J. "A Playwright ' s Progre 78. Quarter ly 38 (Winter 1970): 60- 126

Childs, Herbert El l sworth. "Pl aygoer 's Playwri ght : Maxwel l Anderson." Engl ish Journal 26 (J une 1938): 475-485.

Dickinson, Thomas H. "The Theatre of Maxwel l Anderson ." Theatre Time 2 (Spring 1950): 93-97.

Dusenbury, Winifred L. "Myth in American Drama Between the Wars." Modern Drama 6 (December 1963): 294- 308.

Foster, Edward. "Core of . Bel ief: An lnterpretat"ion of the Plays of Maxwel l Anderson." Sewanee Review Quarterly 50 (J anuary- March 1942) : 82-100. . .

Gassner, John. "Anchors Awei gh: Maxwel l Anderson and Tennessee Williams " Theatre Time ·1 (Spring 1949): 5- 11. 11 Gerstenberger, Donna. "Verse Drama fo· America: 1916-1939. Modern Drama 6 (December 1963 ): 309- 322.

Halline, Al lan G. "Ma xwel l An derson 's Dramat ic Theory. " American Literature 16 (May 19440 : 68-81.

Harri s, Ainsl ie. "Maxwel l Anderson : Poet and Playwri ght." Madison Quarterly 6 (J anuary 1944): 30-44.

Hatcher, Harlan. "Drama in Verse: Anderson , El iot, MacLeish. " Engl ish Journal 25 (J anuary 1936 ): 1-9 .

Isaacs, Edith J. R. "Maxwel l Anderson ." Engl ish Journal 25 {December 1 936 ): 795-804 .

"Maxwel l Anderson : Poetry and Mora lity in the Jackson , Esther M. 11 American Drama. E ducat i ona 1 Theatre Journal 25 (March 1 973): 15-23.

Kernodl e, George R. "Pl aywri ghts and Ancestors. " College Engl ish 2 {Jan uary 1941): 325- 337. Anderson : A Historical Knepler, Henry w. "Maxwel l Paral lel ." Queen 's Quarterly 44 {Sumner 1 957): 249-255.

Levin, Beatrice. "Max·.-1el l Anderson : 'No Certain Answer'." Trace 60 {Spring 1966): 97-100.

Riepe, Dale. "The Philosophy of Maxwel l Anderson ." North Dakota Quarterly 24 (Spring 1956): 45-50.

Rice, Patrick J. "Maxwel l Anderson and the Eternal Dream. " Cathol ic World (August 1953): 364- 3 70 . 12 7 •

Rodel l, John S. "Maxwel l Anderson : A Cri ticism. " Kenyon Review 5 {Spr i n g 194 3 ) : 2 72- 2 77.

Rosenberg, Harold. "Poetry and th� Theatre. " Poetry 57 (J anuary 1941 ) : 258- 263.

Sampl ey, Arthur M. "Theory and Practice in· Ma xwel l Anderson 's Poetic Tragedies." Col l ege Engl ish 5 (May 1944 ): 412-418.

Sandoe, Jame� L •. "The Case f�r Ma xwel l Anderson ." Col orado Col l ege Publ 1cat1on 30 (1 April 1940) : 73-82 . Sharpe, Robert Boles. "Nine . Steps to the Tragic Tri umph." Uni versity of North Carol ina Extension Bul letin 36 (March 1957): 23-40 .

Tees , Arthur T. "Legal and Poetic Jus�ice in Maxwel l Anderson 's Plays." North Dakota Quarterly 38 {Winter 1970): 25-32. 1 • "Maxwel l Anderson s Li berated Women ." North Dakota ---Quarter ly 42 _(Spring 1974): 53-59.

Wall,· Vincent. "Maxwel l Anderson : The Last Anarchist." Sewanee Review Quarterly 49 (J anuary 1943 ): 220-230.

Watts, Harold H. "Maxwel l Anderson : The Tragedy of Attrition." College Engl ish 4 (J anuary 1943): 220-230.

Woodbridge, Homer E. "Maxwell Anderson." South Atl antic Quarterly 44 {J anuary 1945 ): 55- 68.

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Benet , William Rose. "Brightnes s Falls from the Air. " Saturday Review of Literature, 1 7 February 1934, p. 496.

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11 ____• "Harrison Rex. Saturday Review of Literature, 25 December 1948, pp. 24- 26. ,

Caldwel l, Cy. "To See or Not to See. " New Outlook, January 1934 , P• 42. Carmer , Carl . "Maxwel l Anderson : Priet and Champion." Theatre Arts, June 1933, pp. 437-446.

Chatfiel d- Tayl or, Ot is. "The Theatre. " Outlook, 19 November 1930 , p. 4 72. . Cl ark, Barrett H. "Broadway Plays Pass in Rev i ew. " Drama , December 1930 , PP • 11-12 & 18. Clurman, Harol d. "Theatre: Maxwel l Anderson ." New Republ ic, 27 December 1948, p. 29.

Col um, Mary M. "Life and Literature : Revi val in the Theater. " Forum, June 1936, pp . 345- 346.

"Life and Literature: The Drama. " Forum, June·19 37, ---- .• pp. 352-354.

Eastman, Max. "By the Eternal." Stage, April 1937, pp. 51-52.

"Every Inch a Queen. " Lit erary Digest, 22 November 1938, pp. 17-18 .

Fergusson , Francis. "The Theatre Versus Certain Artists of the Theatre. " Bookman , February 1931, pp. 627-630. oing with Gilbert W. Gabriel . " Gabri el , Gil bert w. "Playg Theatre 1949, pp. 19 54-56. __Arts , March &

Gassner, John. "The Theatre at the Crossroads." One-Act. Play Magaz ine, July 1937, pp. 273-275 •

• "The Theatre: Poetry in the Contemporary Theatre. " , -----One-Act Play Magazine, September 1937 pp. 466-470. 129

"The Theatre Arts." Forum, February 1949, pp. 92- 93.

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Phel an, Kappo. "The Stage & Screen." Commonweal , 24 Docember 1 948, p. 281. "A Playgoer 's Discoveries." Stage , January 1934, pp. 9- 15.

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Skinner, Richard Dana . 11The Pla 11 y. Commonweal, 19 November 1930 ' p. 76 .

"The Play. 11 Commonwea l, 15 December 1933, pp . 189- 190.

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____• "The Drama. " Cat hol ic World, January 1949, pp. 321-322.

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Young, Stark. 11 El izabeth.11 New Republ ic, 19 November 1930 , pp. 17-19. · 11Shadow 1 s Shadows. " New Republ ic, 13 Dec�mber 1933, pp . 130- 132.

"Preface to Medi um. 11 New Republ ic, 8 January 1936, p. 257.

Newspapers

Anderson , Ma xwel l. "The Arts as Motive Power. 11 New York Times , 17 1 2. October 1937, sec. II, PP• & Rel igion ." New York • "By Way of Preface: The Theatre as ---- 3 Times, 26 October 1941, sec. 9, PP• 1 & • , 16 February 1947, • s. " New York Times ---- "The Mighty Cri tic sec. 3, p. 1. 11 at ic Critics. New York • "More Thoughts about Dram 1948, sec , V, 1. ----H.eral d-Tribune, 10 October P· Times, 4 November 1930 , Atkinson , J. Brooks. "The Play. " New York p. 30 . Times, 9 November " Good. " New York • When the Guild is 1. ----1 930 , sec . IX, P · 131

1 ----· "The Play. 1 N ew y ark Times, 28 November 1933, p. 28.

---- · "Exercising 1 the King's En gl ish. 1 New York Times ' 21 February 1937, sec. 10 , p. 1.

· "Ruminations of · ---- a Poet." New York Times, 4 J.une 1939, sec. 9 , p. 1. 1 ----· "At the Theatre . 1 New York Times, 9 December 1948, 49. p.

II ---- · "Anne and Henry. New York Times, 19 December 1948, sec. II, p. 3.

· '"Anne' Sti ll is ---- Ablaze. " New York Times, 18 September 194 9 • , , sec II p. 1.

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