A study of contemporary verse drama with especial emphasis on Maxwell Anderson Item Type text; Thesis-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Reveaux, Edward Charles, 1910- Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 06/10/2021 05:10:21 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/553386 A STUDY OF COHTEMPORAHY VERSE DRAMA uITH ESPECIAL mPRASIS OH HAXV/ELL A1IBERSOII Dy Edr/ard Rcvcaux A The3la submitted to the faculty of the Department of English in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Graduate College University of Arizona 1 9 3 8 Approved: (e Major Professor ate i/BR a BI £ 9 7 9 J ■'93X S 3 d2^> „ 2- TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ....................................... ill Chapter I. A BRIEF SUI'VLY OF VERSE DRAMA IN AMERICA AND, TO SOMi EXTENT, ENGLAND FROM 1767-1930 1 II. THE VERSE PLAYS OF MAXWELL ANDERSON . 18 III. THE VERSE PLAYS OF T. S. ELIOT AND ARCHIBALD NACBBISH .................... 80 CONCLUSION................................... 100 BIBLIOGRAPHY................................. 102 xitiviu ii INTRODUCTION In 1935 Clayton Hamilton writes, "If any actor in a contemporary play speaks a line which falls easily into a pattern of verse, or even into a pattern of formal prose, and if the audience detects any ’literary* intention In the writing of the dialogue, this audience will grow ' . r appreciatively restive. In reaction against a practice which is now regarded as ’unnatural*It is undeniable that to most theatre-goers realism is a birthright and the play in verse an eccentricity to be tolerated In full- dress. Yet, the very audiences for whom Hamilton Is spokesman have been vigorously supporting the verse plays of Maxwell Anderson since 1930. In the 1900 decade when Ibsen’s realism had an iron hold on dramatists and public alike the verse plays of Stephen Phillips were successful enough for him to be hailed as "the torch-bearer in the royal line."^ Why is t/' it that the poetic drama since the middle of the nine­ teenth century has been able to mushroom into favor, however solitary its champions, within the stronghold of the realistic theatre such as that of the 1900 decade and the present day? The answer, some believe,lies •*-So You’re Writing a Play?, p. 220. ^'.Valter Eaton, At the New Theatre, p. 124. ill outside tho theatre itself. It :nay be found* they say today, in a general reaction against stark, unadorned journalism as indicated by the success of such novels as Anthony Adverse and Gone v.'lth the Wind. Again, they point to the romantic cast of modern political philosophy - the Aryan ideal of Germany, the worship of Mussolini, the cogwheel god of Soviet Russia, the reverence in the United States for the Constitution. Everywhere, it seems, people are searching for an ideal to replace the gods weakened by scientific fact. The poetic drama, from its inception in Greece, has had a close relationship to the ideal, the soul, man’s relation to the mysterious beyond - the unanswerable. The poetic drama reassures. Man goes to his defeat in his struggle against fate (and forces similar in strength), but man dies nobly - heroically. Perhaps, in this un­ certain hour in the affairs of men, the poetic drama offers some comfort. Perhaps - but here it is not believed that the answer lies so far afield. It is doubted that the history of the poetic drama would support an argument which leans so heavily upon the internal needs of an age. The poetic drama1s success depends, as the drama in prose depends, upon its ability to attract and sustain the interest of people assembled in a theatre. It is just as dependent upon tho shrewdness of its dramatic technique, the tastes of its period, and the particular genius of iv its exponent. But it is not to be assumed that the tastes of its period, however apathetic, can prevent its success. It is then up to the poet-dramatist to devise the means by which he can overcome that apathy. It is the purpose of this thesis to show that the verse play has as good a chance in the commercial theatre as the play in prose, provided the verse play is offered by a dramatist who is at once a poet and a master of dramatic technique and who is willing and able to adapt himself to the conventions of his theatre and the character of M s age. The argument presented requires, it seems to me, a split study. It is necessary first to show that there has always been an appreciable audience for the play in verso, second, to make a detailed study of oontemporary success in the verse form. Consequently, my first chapter is a rapid survey of verse drama in America* and to some extent England, from its beginnings to 1950, the year of Maxwell Anderson*s first success in the verse form. Chapter II is a detailed analysis of Anderson’s work, showing by a consideration of his themes, verse, and dramatic technique that he is "at once a poet and dramatist who is willing to adapt himself to the conventions of his theatre and the character of his ago," and is, therefore, successful. Chapter III considers the work of T. S. Eliot and Archibald MacLeish, two poet-dramatists who, despite superior poetic talents, have been less successful because they have not yet yielded enough to the conventions of their theatre* I have included England in this study of American verse drama because literary England and America have, at timesbeen too close to separate without damaging the complete picture of the American theatre. Even now there is an interchange of plays> rather one-sided to be sure, which forces us to discuss T. S. Eliot, an Englishman by choice, as part of the contemporary American scene• This study is restricted, except for the first chapter, to original contemporary plays of a predominantly verse pattern* This excludes both prose plays, however poetic they may be in character, and revivals such as those of Shakespeare, Moli^re and others. Except for the Mercury Theatre’s startling production of Julius Caesar, 1 do not think people go to a Shakespearean play to see a play but to witness virtuoso acting, and this lias small bearing on the fortunes of a contemporary verse script beyond the fact that verse drama is more likely than prose to give the virtuoso actor something to act on. More and more playwrights are seeing the need for poetic eloquence in the modern -theatre, and many are try­ ing to achieve it by one means or another. There is much to be said that is too broad in its significance to be couched in colloquial terms. It is of utmost importance, therefore, to investigate as fully as possible, the work of vi at least a few of those who have tried to say what they have to say in verse» vll CHAPTER I The first native play, in any form, to be produced by a professional company on American soil is Thomas Godfrey’s blank-verse tragedy. The Prince of Parfchia, presented in 1767, throe years after the author’s death.3 45* The play, while it is a hodge-podge of reminiscences of Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Dryden, Ambrose Phillips, and Rowe,4 has vigor and shows a strong theatric sense. How successful it was, Quinn does not say, but it is indicated by the repertoire of the Hallam company that verse plays are, at this time, popular.3 Following the work of Godfrey and other play­ wrights of small distinction, !!rs. I.'croy Otis warren’s verse satires The Mulateur (1773) and The Group (1775) caused John Adams to style hers the poetic pen without equal in the country.3 The dominant force, however, in the American theatre of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is William Dunlap. He wrote and produced successfully in both verse and prose. His first 3Qulnn, A History of the American Drama, From the Beginning to the Civil war, 1. (Referred to hereafter as Quinn.) ! 4Ibid., 4. 5 Ibid., 13-27. GIbid., 23. 1 2 verso success is The Fatal Deception (1794)» oftorv/ordo published as Leicester. More successful was a Gothic melodrama in blank verse. The Mysterious Monk (1796), published in 1803 as Rlbbomont. He then wrote his verse failure Andre (1793). This play is generally conceded to be not only his best, but one of the best of the peri­ od* Why the play was not well received may be explained, in part at least, by the fact that Dunlap treated the English spy rather sympathetic ally at a time when feel­ ing about Andre was still high* In 1780, it is recalled, Arnold and Washington were still alive. Dunlap devoted himself almost entirely from then on, as he had infre­ quently before, to adaptations of Kotzebue and others — only occasionally doing a bit of original prose writing.? Boston, it may be mentioned, did not allow a theatre until 1794. The first native play was produced three years later. It was V/. C . White's blank verse Orlando. In it the hero takes poison after a series of misunderstandings and persecutions. White himself played the hero. If we judge from the report of his Boston reception, he was probably tempted to give a thoroughly realistic performance•^ In England, not only the drama In verse but the *8 ?See Arthur Ilomblow, A History of the Theatre in America, I, 176-73.