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The American Dream in Literature Eugene O Neil. Eugene O'Neill: The Father of American Drama

The American Dream in Literature Eugene O Neil. Eugene O'Neill: The Father of American Drama

16.07.2019

Chapter I. The philosophy of tragedy by Y. O "Neill.

Chapter II. The tragic universe of Y. O "Neal

Part 1. Themes of sacrifice and fate: "Emperor Jones", "Wings are given to all the children of God", "Moon for the stepchildren of fate".

Part 2. "Hopeless": "The icebreaker is coming."

Dissertation Introduction 2003, abstract on philology, Rybina, Polina Yurievna

The playwriting of Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) played a decisive role in the development of American drama and American theater of the 20th century as a whole. O'Neill creates a theater that breaks with a purely entertaining, pseudo-romantic tradition, on the one hand, and with somewhat provincial plays of national color, on the other. .

O "Neill is one of the greatest tragedians of the 20th century. Close attention to the tragic in art and modern reality in general (1910s - 1940s) was the reason that the playwright never actually turned to another genre. Tragedy became for his most adequate form of embodiment of artistic and philosophical ideas.At the same time, his stage language is extremely rich: the signs of expressionism coexist in it with the style of the theater of masks, the traditions of poetic theater - with the distinctive features of psychological drama.

One can outline a certain range of problems of interest to O'Neill. A characteristic feature of his plays, not without reason, is the tragic discord between dream and reality. Usually this situation leads to the loss of illusions, the impossibility for a person who keeps faith in a certain ideal to find his place in the surrounding reality O'Neil's cast of society is the family - that compressed space where various conflicts rage: between fathers and children, husband and wife, conscious and unconscious, gender and character. Their origins are rooted in the past, with the tragic inevitability of subjugating the present. Former guilt requires atonement, and often the characters in plays are forced to take responsibility for a sin that was not committed by them. Hence the additional dimensions of both the tragic conflict and the philosophy of tragedy he defined about Nilov. The hero is in a struggle with himself, with his calling, nature, God.

The commonality of the problematics indicates that the stylistic richness and diversity of the plays is not accidental. O'Neill is one of the most searching authors of the theater of the 20th century. His search was accompanied by creative crises and even the threat of failure. means of its theatrical implementation. Modernist tragedy requires fundamental eclecticism from its creator, the ability to creatively comprehend the most diverse views on the tragic in order to offer a new look at the purpose of this ancient type of drama. This is all the more true in relation to O "Neill: his work really allows us to talk about a completely original philosophy of tragedy. The focus of our attention is not so much tragedy as a genre, but about the" Neil "version" of the tragedy of a person of the 20th century.

The term "philosophy of tragedy", borrowed by us from Russian thinkers (N. A. Berdyaev, Lev Shestov), allows us to point out those aspects of O "Neill's dramaturgy, which, in our opinion, have not been given enough attention so far, while they form the core of the artistic world created by the American writer.

In the work of 1902 "To the Philosophy of Tragedy. Maurice Maeterlinck" Berdyaev claims that Maeterlinck understands the innermost essence of human life as a tragedy: justified as an aesthetic phenomenon." Maeterlinck does not believe in the power of the human will, actively recreating life, nor in the power of the human mind, knowing the world and illuminating the path"1. It is important that, speaking about the philosophy of tragedy, Berdyaev focuses on the worldview not of a thinker, but of a playwright, for whom philosophizing is not an end in itself, but an organic component of artistic searches proper. "Man has gone through a new experience, unprecedented, lost ground, failed, and the philosophy of tragedy must process this experience"2, - we read in the work "Tragedy and Ordinary Life" (1905). The emphasis, we think, is made precisely on the artistic processing of experience, and, importantly, the experience of the individual. The playwright must find an adequate form for the embodiment of the tragedy of a particular person, his contemporary.

Shestov draws attention to the connection between the philosophy of tragedy and concrete human destiny in Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. The Philosophy of Tragedy (1903). Like Berdyaev, he speaks of an "unprecedented" experience: "There are

1 Berdyaev N. A. To the philosophy of tragedy. Maurice Maeterlinck // Berdyaev N. A. Philosophy of creativity, culture and art: In 2 volumes - T. 1. - M .: Art, 1994. - S. 206.

2 Berdyaev N. A. Tragedy and everyday life // Ibid. - P. 220. An area of the human spirit that has not yet seen volunteers: people go there only involuntarily. This is the realm of tragedy. A person who has been there begins to think differently, feel differently, desire differently.<.>He tries to tell people about his new hopes, but everyone looks at him with horror and bewilderment "3. The acquisition of new knowledge about the terrible and mysterious aspects of life comes at a high price, threatens with general alienation. Nevertheless, it is necessary. Tragedy, according to Shestov , inevitably leads to a "reassessment of all values", which means it does not allow one to be satisfied with ready-made truths, provokes one to search for one's own "truth". Thus, according to Shestov, the "philosophy of tragedy" opposes the "philosophy of everyday life", that is, an uncreative attitude towards life.

The term "philosophy of tragedy" is also convenient because it does not exclude paradoxicality, ambiguity in understanding the tragic. For O "Neill, in the first place, of course, is not the strict systemic nature of his conclusions, but artistic truth. His statements about tragedy may seem contradictory at first glance. But, dressing his ideas in images, he brings them to the fore through stage symbols called not to postulate the truth, but only to anticipate it.

The style of the term, it seems to us, corresponds not only to the specifics of the Nilian worldview, which is essentially post-romantic, post-Nitzschean, but also to the general movement of Western culture at the turn of the century - from symbolist sophistication (aesthetics of reticence) to art more personalistically accentuated. After all, "the philosophy of tragedy "-

3 Shestov L. Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. Philosophy of tragedy. - P .: Ymca-Press, 1971. - P. 16. a phenomenon closely associated with the neo-romantic idea of a person who creates his own code of conduct, his religion and mythology in order to free himself from the power of everyday life. It is all the more appropriate to study the "philosophy of tragedy" of the playwright, whose artistic searches, organically growing out of the culture of the turn of the century, are connected with the most important question posed by the new century - the question of the existential nature of man, the possibility of realizing his freedom. This cultural continuity is indicated by the Russian researcher V. M. Tolmachev: “The neo-romantic idea of personality in the 20th century is most consistently represented in philosophy (M. Heidegger, J.-P. Sartre) and the literature of existentialism (E. Hemingway, A. Camus), where the value of a personal act, albeit negatively expressed, is given against the background of the "death of the gods", a collision with the elements, "nothing", "absurdity""4.

So, the scientific novelty of the dissertation is determined by the fact that the work of the American playwright is viewed through the prism of the "philosophy of tragedy". Accordingly, the genre features of the tragedy are beyond our attention. Rather, the canons of the genre are interesting to us only to the extent that they allowed O "Neill to realize his ideas as a philosophizing artist. O" Neil is a tragedian who independently creates the laws according to which his artistic universe exists.

The most authoritative researchers of O "Neill's dramaturgy (J. Raleigh, O. Cargill, E. Tornquist, T. Bogard) traditionally divide his work into three periods. The first (mid-1910s - early 1920s) includes early

4 Tolmachev V. M. Neo-romanticism and English literature of the early XX century // Foreign literature of the late XIX - early XX century / Ed. V. M. TolmachSva. - M: Ed. center "Academy", 2003. - S. one-act, so-called "sea" plays: the collection "Thirst and Other One-Act Plays" (Thirst and Other One-Act Plays, 1914), the collection "Course east, to Cardiff and other plays (Bound East for Cardiff and Other Plays, 1916). This should also include the plays: "Beyond the Horizon" (Beyond the Horizon, 1920), in which for the first time the opposition of reality - the dream is embodied in the opposition of settled life on a farm to travel to distant countries; "Gold" (Gold, 1921) with a central theme of possessiveness; "Unlike" (DifFrent, 1921), "Anna Christie" (Anna Christie, 1922), where the paradoxes of the modern soul are seen through the prism of women's destinies; "Emperor Jones" (The Emperor Jones, 1920) and "Shaggy Monkey" (The Hairy Are, 1922), influenced by expressionism; "Soldered" (Welded, 1924) and "Wings are given to all the children of God" (All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924), developing Strindberg's motives of "love-hate" between the sexes.

The second period of creativity (mid-1920s - 1930s) is more associated with formal experimentation: "The Great God Brown" (The Great God Brown, 1926), where the mask is the main element of expressiveness; "Lazarus Laughed" (Lazarus Laughed, 1927) with its unusual musical and laughter "score"; "Marco Millionshchik" (Marco Millions, 1927), fitting into the tradition of poetic theater; "Dynamo" (Dynamo, 1929), where the modern "god" is electricity. "Catholic" dramaturgy ("Days Without End", Days Without End, 1934) coexists with the original neo-paganism ("Mourning is the fate of Electra", Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931), which allows using the ancient myth to create a modern tragedy. Interest in the tragic conflict between the conscious and the unconscious is fully reflected in the imagery of "Strange Interlude" (Strange Interlude, 1928).

The late period of the playwright's work falls on the 1940s, following several years of "silence" (the end of the 1930s). Outwardly close to the genre of psychological drama, the plays "Long Day" s Journey into Night, 1940), "The Iceman Cometh" (The Iceman Cometh, 1940; post. 1946), "Moon for the stepsons of fate" ( A Moon for the Misbegotten, 1945; post. 1947), "The Soul of the Poet" (A Touch of the Poet, 1946) give beloved about "Nil's themes (lost illusions, the power of the past over the present) a symbolic dimension, elevate the contradictions of modernity to the rank of true tragic.

Several stages can be distinguished in the study of O "Neill's work5. The first (1920s - mid-40s) is associated with the interpretation of his early plays. Four works deserve the most attention, since, in our opinion, they outline the main areas of research for the next thirty years.

The first is the monograph by E. Mickle "Six Plays of Eugene O" Neill (1929). The critic pays attention to the plays "Anna Christie" (Anna Christie, 1922), "The Hairy Monkey" (The Hairy Are, 1922), "The Great God Brown" (The Great God Brown, 1926), "The Fountain" (The Fountain, 1926) , "Marco Millions" (Marco Millions, 1927), "Strange Interlude" (Strange Interlude, 1928). Mikl highly appreciates these plays, comparing O "Neill with Shakespeare, Ibsen, Goethe. He is one of the first to notice characteristic

5 Miller J. Y. Eugene O "Neill and the American Critic: A Summary and Bibliographical Checklist. - L .: Archon books, 1962. - VIII, 513 p .; Atkinson J. Eugene O" Neill: A Descriptive Bibliography. - Pittsburgh (Pa.): Pittsburgh UP, 1974. - XXIII, 410 p.; Eugene O "Neill: Research Opportunities and Dissertation Abstracts / Ed. by T. Hayashi. - Jefferson (N. C.), L .: McFarland, 1983. - X, 155 p .; Friedstein Yu. G. Eugene O" Neill: Bibliographic Index / Comp. and ed. enter, Art. Yu. G. Fridshtein. - M.: Book, 1982. - 105 p. traits of tragedy, high drama: "The man who went forth to face the daily domestic round is suddenly shown face to face with the tremendous, unconquerable, elemental forces against which is spent all the vital energy of man. The great human dramatists use exactly the same methods"6. Thus, Mikl draws attention to a certain plot model that underlies the Neil plays. In one of the passages, he gives her an additional characteristic: "The characters never lose touch with the real, but are never out of touch with the beyond- real" 7.

Opposite interpretations were not long in coming. In the work of V. Geddes "The Melodramaticity of Eugene O" Neill "(The Melodramadness of Eugene O" Neill, 1934), tragedy in the Neil interpretation is reduced to the level of melodrama, which, moreover, refuses theatricality ("In the world of theater .O'Neillis not at home "8). In fact, this work is extremely insightful in noting the "weaknesses" really inherent in the O'Neill theater of the 1920s and 1930s. We can agree with the opinion of Geddes regarding the play "Days Without End" (Days Without End, 1934: "Drama and philosophy in his plays do not harmonize in a smooth convincing rhythm" 9. The researcher notices that preponderance towards philosophical conclusions, which in the future will adversely affect the artistic integrity of the plays.

6 Mickle A. D. Six Plays of Eugene O "Neill. - L .: Cape, 1929. - P. 19.

8 Geddes V. The Melodramadness of Eugene O "Neill. - Brookficld (Mo.): The Brookficld Players, 1934. - P. 8.

9 Ibid - P. 12 - 13.

An interesting difference in the interpretation of "Nil's" tongue-tied * eloquence" by subsequent researchers and in the work of Geddes: "Not is an example of a man at war with art. Expression with him is something he does not love to do; it is too much like a confession, an embarrassment of the heart wrung from him against his will." reviewed by J. Raleigh in the monograph The Plays of Eugene O'Neill (1965). The critic demonstrates the connection of these clichés with the vaudeville "Monte Cristo", a performance in which the playwright's father played the main role.

The third study of interest to us belongs to R. Skinner:

Eugene O "Neill: a poetic quest" (Eugene O "Neill: A Poet" s Quest, 1935). The playwright is perceived by the critic as a Catholic poet (the presence of a kind of Catholic worldview in O "Neill is undoubted; like many Anglo-American modernists, his attitude to faith and the Catholic tradition is ambivalent, woven from love-hate), who embodied in the plays the contradictions of his spiritual world. This the poet is compared by Skinner with the saint, and the poetic ability to understand the other self, as well as the possibilities of many selves inherent in the poet, are compared with the temptations ("temptations") that arise before the saint: ". it is precisely because the poet reacts as he does to his own potential weaknesses that he is able to create the objective material for his work of art. Like the saints, he, above most other men, understand the

10 Ibid. - P. 7. sinner and fears the sin "11. Such an approach allows the researcher to formulate a certain lyrical property of O" Neil's dramaturgy: ".the quality of continuous poetic progression, linking them All together by a sort of inner bond. They have a curious way of melting into one another, as if each play were

19 merely a chapter in the interior romance of a poet"s imagination" .

Another line of research is the consideration of O'Neill's dramaturgy in the light of the ideas of psychoanalysis. The first work of this kind belongs to V. Khan: "The Plays of Eugene O"Neill: A Psychological Analysis, 1939) .

It should be noted that a surge of interest in the work of the playwright came in the 1950s, when two literary biographies appeared, in particular: "Part of a Long Story" (A Part of a Long Story, 1958), owned by Agnes Boulton, O's second wife Neil, and "The Curse of the Misbegotten: A Tale of the House of O" Neill, 1959) by K. Bowen, written jointly with O'Neil's son, Sheen. At the same time, two monographs appear, in assessment of O'Neill's work, adhering to the interpretation outlined by E. Mickl. The first is E. Angela, "The Haunted Heroes of Eugene O" Neill (1953). The second belongs to D. Fall to - "Eugene O" Neill and the tragic contradictions "(Eugene O" Neill and the Tragic Tensions, 1958). The researcher compares the heroes of O "Neil with the characters of E. Poe, G. Melville and F. M. Dostoevsky, revealing in them the features of a certain archetype (Oedipus - Macbeth - Faust - Ahab). D. Faulk draws attention to the similarities

11 Skinner, Richard D. Eugene O'Neill: A Poet's Quest. - N. Y. (N. Y.): Russel & Russel, 1964. - P. 29.

12 Ibid. - P. IX. views of C. G. Jung (who had a great influence on the American playwright) and O "Neill in relation to the "eternally existing" contradiction between the conscious and the unconscious: "Men must find self-knowledge and a middle way which reconciles the unconscious needs with those of the conscious ego. This means that life inevitably involves conflict and tension, but that the significance of this pain is the growth which Jung calls "individuation" - the gradual realization of the inner, complete personality through constant change, struggle and process" 13. Precisely because of this circumstances, the characters of "Nil's dramaturgy are doomed to fight with themselves again and again.

In the 1960s and 1970s, several meaningful biographies of the playwright appeared. These are the works of D Alexander "The Formation of Eugene O" Neill "(The Tempering of Eugene O" Neill, 1962); Arthur and Barbara Gelb - "O" Neil "(O" Neill, 1962); L. Schaeffer - "O" Neill: Son and Playwright "(O" Neill: Son and Playwright, 1968), "O" Neill: Son and Artist "(O" Neill: Son and Artist, 1973).

In 1965, the already mentioned monograph by D. Raleigh "The Plays of Eugene O'Neill" was published, which became in many ways a classic. The researcher examines both the content and the formal aspects of O'Neill's dramaturgy. He begins with an analysis of the special cosmology of plays and comes to an idea similar to that of D. Faulk. At the heart of O'Neill's artistic universe is the principle of polarity, the tension between opposite poles, which are both incompatible and inseparable from each other. Raleigh approaches this issue less abstractly than Faulk, and considers the O'Neal universe in its division into sea and land, countryside and

13 Falk, Doris V. Eugene O "Neill and the Tragic Tension: An Interpretive Study of the Plays. - New Brunswick (N.J.): Rutgers UP, 1958. - P. 7. city, day and night. With this polarity in mind , Raleigh discusses the main themes of O'Neill's dramaturgy, about how God, history, and humanity appear before us. In his analysis of historical plays, the researcher comes to the conclusion that O'Neil is close to the Victorian approach to conveying historical realities in literature . He quotes the playwright himself: "I do not think that you can write anything of value or understanding about the present. You can only write about life if it is far enough in the past. The present is too much mixed up with superficial values; you can "t know which thing is important and which is not" 14. Past and present are also a kind of poles.

The chapter "Humankind" (Mankind) - one of the best in the book - Raleigh devotes to the racial problem in O "Neill (Negroes and whites, Irish and Yankees), the theme of masculine and feminine principles, as well as the concept of personality. Considering the dramatic structure ("dramatic structure or organization") about "Nil's plays, as well as the function of remarks and dialogue in them, Raleigh appeals to the thought of M. Proust, according to which every great artist snatched from an endless stream of experience a certain picture ("basic picture"), which became for him a metaphor for everything human existence. The concept of such a picture-metaphor is extremely appropriate when analyzing a dramatic work. Raleigh believes that the main picture-metaphor of O'Neil's work is a grieving woman.

Two works published in the late 1960s are specially devoted to O'Neill's technique: E. Tornquist's monograph "Drama of Souls" (A Drama of Souls: Studies in O'Neill's Supernaturalistic Techniques, 1968), as well as T. Tiusanen's study "Scenic images of O" Neil "(O" Neill "s Scenic Images, 1968). Author of the first

14 Raleigh, John N. The Plays of Eugene O "Neill. - Carbondale-Edwardsville (II.): Southern Illinois UP, 1965. P. 36. The work cites the words of the playwright, uttered by him in an interview in 1924: "I hardly ever go to the theatre, although I read all the plays I can get. I don "t go to the theater because I can always do a better production in my mind than the one on the stage."15. It would seem that O'Neill, on the basis of such views on creativity, should create "dramas for reading", not caring about their stage presence. Indeed, continuing his reasoning, Thornquist notes that O'Neill paid no less attention to extensive remarks in his plays than dialogue, which endows them with the properties of epic works. According to the researcher, the playwright was trying to prove that a play not staged is valuable as a literary work. Nevertheless, Thornquist takes into account the possibility of a stage interpretation of the play and sees his task in determining the semantic significance of its own dramatic structure: "In agreement with O" Neill "s own usage of the term as I understand it," supernaturalism "" will thus be employed in a wide sense. Any play element or dramatic device - characterization, stage business, scenery, lighting, sound effects, dialogue, nomenclature, use of parallelism - will be considered supernaturalistic if it is dealt with in such a way by the dramatist, that it transcends (deepens, intensifies, stylizes or openly breaks with) realism in the attempt to project what O"Neill terms "behind-life"" values to the reader or spectator"16.

The attempt to consider the plays of O "Neill as works of dramatic art was successful for the author of only the second of the monographs mentioned. Tiusanen specifically stipulates the fundamental principle of reading the play: ". stage

15 Tornqvist, Egil. A Drama of Souls: Studies in O'Neill's Super-Naturalistic Technique. - New Haven (CT):

Yale UP, 1969, -P. 23.

16 Ibid.-P. 43. is, or should be, ever present in our imagination as readers - as it has been in the

I *j playwright"s mind" . In his work, he pays attention to four of the six components of the tragedy identified in the Aristotelian "Poetics": 1) "plot" 18 or the structure of the play (plot or structure), insofar as they are influenced by stage expressive means; 2) "verbal expression" ^ (Lup); 3) "musical composition" ("the Lyrical or Musical element provided by the Chorus"); 4) "the stage setting" ("the Spectacular"). Tiusanen pays special attention to the fact that the playwright achieves his goal not only with the help of language, dialogue, but also through lighting, music, and scenography.

The works devoted to the consideration of the dramatic skill of O "Neill also include two monographs published in the 1970s. This is the work of T. Bogard "Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O" Neill, 1972) and L. Chebrow's study "Ritual and Pathos - The Theater of O" Neill, 1976). Chebrow's work most convincingly proves the connection between the playwright's formal searches and ancient Greek tragedy.

A rather unconventional monograph for O'Neill researchers belongs to J. Robinson: Eugene O'Neill and Oriental Thought: A Divided Vision (1982). It analyzes the influence of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism on the themes and imagery of O'Nil's plays. At the same time, Robinson comes to the conclusion that the playwright does not

17 Tiusanen, Timo. (Weill's Scenic Images. - Princeton (N.J.), Princeton UP, 1968. - P. 3.

18 Russian-language terms are given in the translation of VG Appelrot // Aristotle. On the art of poetry. M: Artist. lit., 1957. - S. 58. could renounce the dualistic Western worldview that underlies his tragic vision.

In recent years, interest has increased in the study of the playwright's work from the standpoint of psychoanalysis, which is confirmed by the works of B. Voglino - ""Upset Mind": O"Neill's Struggle with Closure" ("Perverse Mind": Eugene O"Neill"s Struggle with Closure, 1999 ), as well as S. Black - "Eugene O" Neill: Beyond Mourning and Tragedy "(Eugene O" Neill: Beyond Mourning and Tragedy, 1999). Black's monograph is the first experience of a consistent psychoanalytic biography of the playwright. Black's main idea is that O'Neill consciously used writing as a means of subjecting himself to psychoanalysis. Paying considerable attention to the Neil's perception of tragedy, Black aims to show how the movement from the awareness of the tragedy of being through a long period of introspection to ideas that are outside the tragic worldview took place.

In the book "Modern Drama Theories: Selected Articles on Drama and Theatre, 1840 - 1990" (1998), edited by G. W. Brand, Nilov's idea of the tasks of theatrical art is considered as an example of "anti-naturalism" ("anti-naturalism ") and fits into the same tradition with the French surrealists (G. Apollinaire), Italian futurists (F. T. Marinetti), such prominent figures of the European theater as A. Appia, G. Craig, A. Artaud.

The works of the German K. Müller "Reality embodied on the stage" (Inszenierte Wirklichkeiten: Die Erfahrung der Moderne im Leben und Werk Eugene O "Neills, 1993) and the American researcher 3. Britske "Aesthetics of Failure" (The Aesthetics of Failure: Dynamic Structure in the Plays of Eugene O "Neill, 2001) combines an interest in the playwright's formal search, in his desire to find a modern stage language to embody the main themes of his work.

Of the Russian-language works, mention should be made of the book by A. S. Romm "American Dramaturgy of the First Half of the 20th Century" (1978), in which one of the chapters is devoted to the work of O "Neill, as well as the monograph by M. M. Koreneva -" The Creativity of Yu. O "Neal and the Paths of American Drama" (1990), a comprehensive coverage of the identified issues. The researcher not only analyzes the work of O "Neill, but also places his dramaturgy in the context of the development of the American theater as a whole. Koreneva considers two types of tragedies in O" Neil - the "tragedy of the individual", built around one central character, and the "universal tragedy", where the conflict is "scattered", not exhausted by a direct confrontation between the protagonist and the antagonist. M. M. Koreneva insists on the socio-political causes of "the deep tragedy of modern man, alienated from his true essence, a man whose dignity is violated by various forms of institutionalized inequality, whose spiritual aspirations are trampled by a society that has submitted to grossly material goals"19. In our opinion, the absolutization of the role of the "environment" in O "Nil's plays distorts his tragic vision. In this sense, the Russian researcher S. M. Pinaev, author of the monograph "The Poetics of the Tragic in American Literature. Dramaturgy of O" Nile ", formulated a more insightful understanding of the tragic O" Nile. (1988): "By "today's disease" he meant "the death of the old God and the inability of science and materialism to put forward a new one that satisfies the primitive natural instinct of finding the meaning of life and getting rid of the fear of death." WITH

19 Koreneva M. M. The work of Y. O "Neal and the paths of American drama. - M .: Nauka, 1990. - P. 11. Displaying the symptoms of the "disease" of the soul and consciousness of modern man with great skill, he searched in vain for the reasons that caused this disease" 20.

But this remark also needs, in our opinion, some correction. Tragedy for O'Neill is not a means to point out the "diseases" of the century, he does not classify social ailments. The appeal to tragedy is dictated by the nature of his talent, the nature of his artistic temperament, and literary inclinations. In order to see in American reality the material for creating tragedy, An admirer of Wilde and Baudelaire, Strindberg and Nietzsche, a person with an extraordinary fate, O'Neil was looking for an adequate form to embody his own ideas. Pointing to the critical orientation of O "Neill's dramaturgy, researchers forget about the playwright's deeply optimistic interpretation of the very essence of tragedy (see Chapter I), which became for him a path to understanding the modern soul.

So, the main goal of this dissertation is to analyze the philosophy of O'Neill's tragedy, around which the entire artistic world of the playwright is built.

To solve this problem, we have chosen the plays "Emperor Jones", "Wings are given to all the children of God", "The icebreaker is coming", "Moon for the stepsons of fate". On the one hand, they allow us to trace the transformation of traditional tragic themes (fatal curse, sacrifice) in the theater of one of the most original playwrights of the 20th century. On the other hand, it is these plays that convincingly prove that O "Neill created a tragic universe,

20 Pinasv S. M. The era of upstarts or the second discovery of the continent // American literary renaissance of the XX century / Comp. S. M. Pinasv. - M: Azbukovnik, 2002. - S. 42. existing according to its own, unique laws. "Emperor Jones" and

Wings are given to all the children of God "- vivid examples of plastic theater, t making it possible to point out the scenic expressiveness of the" Nilov tragedy. Later plays reveal other aspects of the playwright's artistic world. In "The Icebreaker" and "The Moon for the Stepsons of Fate" the scrupulous psychological development of the characters is inseparable from their symbolic interpretation. Therefore, the selected plays allow us to present the philosophy of O'Neill's tragedy in its dynamics.

Exploring the work of the American playwright, we relied on general works on the theory and history of tragedy. Among them are monographs that have become classics in their own way: "The Hidden God" (Le Dieu Cache, 1959) by L. Goldman, "The Tragic Vision" (The Tragic Vision, 1960) by M. Krieger, "The Death of Tragedy" (The Death of Tragedy, 1961) J. Steiner, "Tragedy and the Theory of Drama" (Tragedy and the Theory of Drama, 1961) E. Olson. The description of the main features of the tragic vision leads the authors to the analysis of specific philosophical and literary works. The tragedy of O "Neill is directly paid attention to in the work of E. Olson, as well as in the monographs of R. B. Heilman "The Iceman, the Arsonist, and the Troubled Agent: Tragedy and Melodrama on the Modern Stage" , 1973), P. B. Sewell's The Vision of Tragedy (1980), J. Oppa Tragic Drama and Modern Society (1989). ", "tragedy" and "tragic vision", formulated, in particular, by the American researcher W. Storm in the book "After Dionysus" (After Dionysus: A Theory of the Tragic, 1998): "Whereas vision and tragedy are man-made, the tragic is not; it is, rather, a law of nature, a specific relationship of being and cosmos"21.

It should be specially mentioned* why we have chosen these particular works. They present two fundamentally different approaches. The goal of some researchers (Olson, Heilman) is to determine the conformity or inconsistency of O'Neill's tragedies with the hypothetical laws of the genre, which, in our opinion, distorts the writer's unique artistic world. It is more appropriate to try to see a non-canonical tragedian in the playwright. It is from these positions that Sewell addresses his work in "The Vision of Tragedy". He argues that in the 19th century, the "relay" of Shakespearean tragedy was picked up not by the theater, but by the novel (N. Hawthorne, X. Melville, F. M. Dostoevsky). Only with the advent of X. Ibsen and Y. O The Nile Theater has regained its original tragedians. Consequently, "tragedy" is understood by the researcher broadly, not as a genre, but as the quintessence of a special worldview. In this, Sewell follows Krieger, who believes that modern tragedy should not be approached formally, but thematically.

When analyzing specific texts, we relied on the methodology of "thorough reading", proposed by the American "new criticism", in particular, C. Brooks and R. B. Heilman in "Understanding drama" (1948). * *

The first chapter of this study is devoted to the consideration of the philosophy of the tragedy of O "Neill on the material of letters, articles, interviews of the playwright. It analyzes the influence of M. Stirner, A. Schopenhauer, F. Nietzsche on the O" Nile understanding of tragedy and its artistic embodiment.

21 Storm W. After Dionysus: A Theory of the Tragic. - Ithaca: Cornell U.P. 1998. -P. 18.

The second chapter consists of two sections, in which, in the light of this problem, O'Neill's plays are considered in detail: "Emperor Jones", "Wings are given to all God's children", "The moon for the stepsons of fate", "The icebreaker is coming".

In conclusion, the results of the study are summarized. The philosophy of O'Neill's tragedy fits into the context of the literary and general cultural searches of the interwar era.

Conclusion of scientific work dissertation on the topic "Philosophy of tragedy in the work of Y. O Nil"

CONCLUSION

The 20th century was marked by a rather rapid change in various directions in drama and directing. The conditionally metaphorical tradition (the intellectual drama of the existentialists and Brecht, the theater of the absurd) coexists with the desire for naturalistic lifelikeness (the dramaturgy of the English and German "angry") and the aesthetics of the document (the German documentary drama of the 1960s). The requirement of a shock impact on the viewer (A. Artaud) is opposed by the rejection of emotions in favor of critical judgment (B. Brecht). Despite the monopoly of the prose principle in dramaturgy, verse drama does not disappear either (T. S. Eliot). Preference is given either to the actual theatrical performance (dadaist and surrealist performances), or to the text of the play, in which the monologue word prevails over the stage action (the dramaturgy of the German P. Handke, the Frenchman B.-M. Koltes).

Against this background, the dramaturgy of Eugene O'Neill is a highly original phenomenon. Sensitive to European theatrical trends, he creates a modern tragedy on "American" material. The reality of America, in his interpretation, is just as rich in truly tragic collisions (guilt, redemption), as well as ancient Greek drama. In our dissertation, the philosophy of tragedy by Eugene O "Neill was considered on the material of plays, interviews and letters of the playwright. It is characterized by the tragic insolubility of a number of contradictions. Tragic, according to O "Neill, is the internal split of a person of the 20th century, unable to find his place (the concept of "belong" is the leitmotif) in the world. Tragic is the discord between the ideal and reality, which puts the hero in front of a dilemma: how to give up his innermost dream and remain himself • Tragic is man's dependence on mysterious forces (rock, God, heredity), over which he has no power.

It is appropriate to recall that O "Neill arose interest in tragedy under the influence of various, and sometimes very contradictory influences. Of course, it is important to turn to the Greek tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles) or Shakespeare. But he was much more influenced by his immediate European predecessors and contemporaries (X. Ibsen, A. Strindberg, G. Hauptmann, A.-R. Lenormand) and not only playwrights, but perhaps to a greater extent - poets (C. Baudelaire, C. A. Swinburne, D G. Rossetti, E. Dawson). O "Neill also experienced a significant influence of German expressionism, which clearly declared itself in the European theater and cinema of the 1910s-1920s. In this work, much attention was paid to philosophers, acquaintance with whom left an imprint on Nilov's understanding of tragedy.

Special mention should be made of the national flavor of the tragedy of O'Neill. It is manifested, in particular, in the fact that the most important choice for the American hero is the choice between two models of life-building. He must decide what is preferable - "to be" or "to have." According to playwright, his contemporaries unequivocally resolved this dilemma in favor of “having.” Accordingly, O'Neal sees one of the main ailments of the century in the thirst for possession, to which the owner inevitably sacrifices his soul. Indicative in this regard is the name of the huge cycle of plays conceived by O "Neil -" A Tale of Possessors, Self-Dispossessed ".

Many of O'Neill's contemporaries pointed to the tragic background of the "American Dream". In prose, T. Dreiser and F. S. Fitzgerald stated this, albeit in very different ways. Tragic trouble, dissatisfaction, conflict between external forms of life and the subconscious, - the lot of S. Anderson's characters. In E. Hemingway, tragic collisions are deliberately driven into subtext, "flicker" through the verbal fabric. O "Neill in his own way fits into the tradition of debunking public illusions, but he places the accents differently. What is important for him is not social criticism or even fixation of the spiritual emptiness of his compatriots, "hollow people". He sees that the "American dream" hides the departure of life, the death of living impulses, and also carries the message of the revenge of nature. "Nature" ll beat ye, Eben "- says Abby ("Passion under the Elms"). The living is "at the bottom", continues to exist in a distorted form (morbid conditions, alcoholism, crime). For example, confrontation takes the form of a grotesque " living" possessive instincts: Abby commits infanticide, Tyrone refuses to possess his beloved girlfriend. Spirituality makes people dummies. The inability to part with their living soul turns them into "stepchildren of fate", forced to suffer forever from unfulfillment, "hopeless hope." However, this not an abstraction, but a deeply thoughtful understanding of the dehumanization of America. The philosophy of tragedy, according to O'Neill, is the opposite of the American philosophy of success.

In the American theater, tragic intonation is characteristic not only of O'Neill's dramas. It can be heard both in the plays of his contemporaries (E. Rayet, T. Williams), and in subsequent generations of playwrights (E. Albee). But it is in the case of O " Neil, one can speak of a consistent philosophy of tragedy. O "Neil creates a special artistic model of being. And the philosophy of tragedy gives it integrity. It is tragic collisions that give him the opportunity to decipher the puzzles of modern consciousness, to present it in contradictory dynamics.

Therefore, the universal, supranational meaning of the philosophical conclusions of the American playwright is more important.

In the context of the theatrical searches of the 20th century, O'Neill's interest in tragedy is not exceptional. For example, O'Neill's contemporary, F. Garcia Lorca, feeling the connection of his dramaturgy with the traditions of the Spanish theater, spoke of the need to return tragedy to the modern stage. Blood Wedding (1933), Yerma (1934) and Bernard Alba's House (1945) are some of the most striking examples of this genre in the theater of the 20th century. For Lorca, as well as for O "Neill, what is happening in the tragedy, in addition to its specific side, also has a universal character (love, death, the irreversible course of time, loneliness). Therefore, the characters of the "Bloody Wedding", for example, are deprived of individual names - Mother, Groom, Bride. They are "poetic versions of human souls" (Lorca). And although the language and tunes of Andalusia are an integral part of these "souls", the local flavor is secondary for the playwright. "This myth of the human soul," Lorca said about "The Wonderful Shoemaker," I could embody in the Eskimo color"1.

B. Brecht, whose name is traditionally associated with the image of the "epic theater", is the spokesman for opposing views on tragedy. In the 1920s, E. Piscator contrasted the modern theater with the "Aristotelian", in other words, dramaturgy based on dramatic tension, the creation of a stage illusion and the audience's empathy for the feelings and actions of the hero. Brecht reinforces this thesis of Piscator. He denies the Aristotelian doctrine of catharsis, which gives ancient Greek tragedy its stage appeal. According to Brecht, the tragedy began to seem to the viewer "beautiful", aesthetically justified. Accordingly, misfortune, suffering, defeat were mythologized by the theater and presented in this "gilded" form as a force that ennobles the audience. “Do you know how pearls are created in the shell of Margaritifera?” the Brechtian Galileo comments on this situation. “This oyster becomes mortally ill when some foreign body, such as a grain of sand, penetrates into it. It closes this grain of sand into a ball of mucus. it doesn't die. To hell with pearls, I prefer healthy oysters."

Brecht's observation was not isolated.

The German existentialist philosopher K. Jaspers draws attention to the fact ("On Truth", 1947) that the audience's empathy for the character leads to

1 Garcia Lorca F. An interesting undertaking // Garcia Lorca F. Elected, produced: In 2 volumes - Vol. 2. -

M.: Artist. lit., 1986. - S. 427.

2 Brecht B. Life of Galileo // Brecht B. Poems. Stories. Plays. - M: Artist. lit., 1972. - S.

742. dual feeling - involvement in what is happening and detachment from it. This detachment gives rise to a pleasant sense of security, turns the viewer not into a participant, but only into a witness to the tragedy, which, by and large, "does not concern" him.

Thus, Brecht's denial of tragedy is due to the fact that it cannot be "useful" to him, does not serve to awaken the viewer's socio-critical activity.

The French existentialists, seeking to return tragedy to the modern stage, again turned to the interpretation of ancient subjects ("Flies", 1943, J.-P. Sartre; "Antigone", 1944, J. Anouilh). "The theater of situations" - this is how Sartre designated the type of his dramaturgy, emphasizing the importance of the exceptional circumstances in which he places his characters. It is these essentially tragic circumstances (mortal danger, crime) that give an idea of what "free choice" is, the sine qua non of existentialism. In other words, the "situation" is not a gradually developing psychological dimension, but some kind of initially existing platform for the tragedy. On its stage, existentialist heroes struggle primarily with themselves.

This study allows us to conclude that Nilov's philosophy of tragedy in its own way turns out to be close to existentialism, since it is connected with the problem of individuality and freedom of the individual. Tragedy is the lot of individuals who do not want to adhere to generally accepted rules that question the ideals and values of machine civilization. the lot of those who, in a pagan way, sensitively respond to the call of nature, are able to hear deep rhythms, and at the same time are not able to defend themselves against them, they are not even in control of their own nature. Hence, by the way, the rejection of puritanism, which turns its adherents, according to O "Neill , into human mannequins, gives their faces a resemblance to lifeless masks.

A tragedy for a pronounced individuality is a way of opposing the standardization of a way of life, feeling, thinking. The tragedy is "tailored" for each character according to a special, only suitable "measurement" for him. Thus, in a stereotypical, mechanistic world, through tragedy, individuality declares itself as "different" ("difFrent"), "not belonging" ("don"t belong").

This sometimes communicates something grotesque to the search for truth. But in the Nilovsky artistic universe, the truth lies in the personal search for the absolute, wherever they lead as a result (there are many variations: a zoo, an island in the Pacific Ocean, the bottom of a bottle).

Remaining himself, following his truth (usually revealed not in concepts, but in a special inner rhythm, in the accent of speech, in tongue-tied language), the hero opposes an impersonal fate, a mysterious force (God, fate, heredity), he creates his own life. He is dependent on this power, but it is neutral. And it is in his power to tell her the tragic meaning.

And tragedy sets free. It allows you to rise, on the one hand, above the mercantile civilization, and on the other hand, to be outside the field of influence of an incomprehensible fate, which, like society, is capable of leveling a person, imposing her fate.

So about "Nilovsky man tries to find solid ground in a world without God, to give meaning (albeit tragic) to his existence, to learn to "laugh" (not like the characters in the drama of the absurd, but like Lazarus) in the face of death. When Shestov says that "the last word of the philosophy of tragedy" - "to respect the great ugliness, great misfortune, great failure", he, in essence, calls not to close his eyes to the tragic aspects of life, because this is the key to freedom. For the Nilovsky hero, tragedy is self-affirmation with a negative sign, a kind of proof by contradiction. The hero proves (first of all to himself) that he is an individual, a free person who has not lost the "soul of the poet."

3 Shestov L. Dostoevsky and Nietzsche. Philosophy of tragedy. - P.: Ymca-Press, 1971. - S. 244.

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129. Bogard T. Contour in Time: The Plays of Eugene O "Neill. - N.Y. (N.Y.): Oxford UP, 1972.- XX, 491 p.

130. Gelb A., Gelb B. O "Neill. - N.Y. (N.Y.): Harper & Row, 1973. - XX, 990 p.

131. Sheaffer L. O "Neill: Son and Artist. - Boston (Ma.): Little, Brown & co, 1973. - XVIII, 750 p.

132. Chabrowe L. Ritual and Pathos: The Theater of O "Neill. - L .: Assoc. UP, 1976. - XXIII, 226 p.

133. Robinson J. Eugene O "Neill and Oriental Thought: A Divided Vision. - Carbondale-Edwardsville (II.): Southern Illinois UP, 1982. - 201 p.

134. Eugene O "Neill" s "The Iceman Cometh". A Collection of Critical Essays / Ed. and with an introduction. by H. Bloom. - N. Y. (N. Y.) etc.: Chelsea House, 1987. - VII, 120 P

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O'Neil(1888-1953) playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1936). The artist is complex and multifaceted, having experienced various influences - from the ancient theater to A. Strindberg and M. Gorky, he had a completely original talent and created plays of different styles, mainly in the genre drama and tragedy. Only one work was written by him in a comedic vein - "Oh, youth" (Ah, Wilderness!, 1932). In general, his work is one of the most impressive studies of the tragic aspects of American reality. Not front, prosperous and outwardly prosperous America, but ordinary

people, the philistine environment, ordinary workers, even representatives of the "bottom" - these are the characters of his dramas. The writer set the task of penetrating into the inner world of a person, artistic exposure of the deep motives of people's behavior. The innovative searches of the young O "Neill coincided with the theatrical experimentation of George Cram Cook and Susan Glaspel, who created the Provincetown Player theater troupe in the summer of 1916. In the abandoned shipyard of Provincetown they converted, one-act plays by O" Neil "Thirst" and "K" first appeared on the stage. east to Cardiff. Already the very plots of O'Neill's early works - and he wrote many of them - decisively distinguished the young playwright from the authors of salon and family dramas. The action takes place in a sailor's cockpit, in ports, his characters are hard workers and bastards sailors, port people and prostitutes. These "simple" people have their own problems, and their inner world is far from being primitive.

From 1912 to 1919, O'Neill's "student" period lasted. Subsequently, he published only a few of his early plays, but almost all of them have survived and are currently published in the United States.

In 1920, O'Neill's first multi-act drama "Over the Horizon" (Beyond the Horizon, Pulitz, etc.) appeared on the New York stage, and from that time his active work as a reformer of the American theater began. "Beyond the Horizon" and the following her plays American critics defined as "naturalistic" because of the detailed depiction of the dark sides of reality. It is more correct to speak of them as realistic dramas that combine a direct depiction of American life with a great psychological development of characters and a sharp formulation of moral problems. , broken by circumstances, appear in the play "Beyond the Horizon" in the images of two brothers, of which one is a dreamer, the other is a practitioner, and both suffer a collapse of hopes. "Anne Christie"(1921) the heroes of one-act plays reappear - a drunken sailor, his prostitute daughter Anna. In the play" Wings are given to all children of men"(1924) shows how these "wings" are cut off by life. The conflict between husband and wife here is complicated by the specifically American problem of interracial marriage. IN "Love Under the Elms"(1924) the lust for possession - land, money, beloved creature - leads to a grim family tragedy. The tension of the action in these plays is achieved by deep and sharp conflicts arising from the fact that the characters follow a non-capital

morality, but powerful passions.

Simultaneously with the realistic ones, O "Neill creates a number of experimental plays, in which he sometimes neglects external plausibility, uses conditional stage techniques. The hero of the play "Emperor Jones"(1920), who fled from the rebellious people to the island, finds himself in the grip of fears, he is haunted by the memory of the crimes he committed, horrors seem to him. Even more expressionistic and symbolic is the play " Shaggy monkey"(1922). Play "Great God Brown"(1926), which touches on the topic of success, clearly shows the split personality of the hero by means of conventional theater with the use of masks.

In 1923, the Bonn and Livright publishing house publishes the first collection of O'Neill's plays - in five books, and three years later the first monograph about him, written by Barret Clark, appears.

opened up in "Strange Interlude" (1928, Pulitz, etc.), a grandiose nine-act drama in which the characters (in addition to dialogue) express in long monologues and sideways remarks what they really feel and think. These speeches are heard by the viewer, but they are not available to other actors. In the image of Nina Leeds and other characters in the play, the influence of psychoanalysis is palpable.

In the trilogy Mourning Becomes Elektra"(1931) the story of the family of the southern general Mannon, returning from the Civil War, is dramatized in the spirit of ancient tragedies in direct parallel with the myth of Agamemnon. The author defined this work as the embodiment of "the Greek concept of fate, which the modern public can perceive and at the same time experience excitement ".

In the mid 30s. the playwright is going through an internal crisis, aggravated by periodic ill health and news of the escalating situation in the world. "The Ice Seller" (1939, post. 1946) involuntarily draws a parallel with the play "At the Bottom" by Gorky, but unlike Gorky's realism, O "Neill is dominated by a conditionally symbolic beginning, as well as disbelief in the ability of characters to rise from the bottom of life. After a long break, O "Neal creates deep psychological dramas containing autobiographical motifs and based on dramatically transformed images of his family members - father, mother, brother. Their characters

under the playwright's pen, they became new versions of the losers, whom the writer studied so closely. "A long day goes into night" depicts a family hell dominated by James Tyrone Sr.; a romantic actor on stage, a calculating pragmatist in family life, he brought his wife to drug addiction. James Jr. is a drunkard, Edmund, a sick and dreamy young a man weighed down by a terrible

situation in the house. In "The Moon for the Stepsons of Destiny" (the1943, publ. 1957), the further fall of the dissolute

James Tyrone, Jr., his throwing and selfless love for him Josie, a woman of unusually large stature. The play The Soul of a Poet (1942, publ. 1957) is thematically connected with this dilogy, although its action takes place in the last century. The theme of a failed life and self-deception was embodied in the image of the Irishman Cornelius Melody, a retired military man, now an innkeeper, who imagines himself to be a second Byron. The play was part of the grandiose dramatic epic "The Saga of Owners Who Robbed Themselves" (A Tale

of Possessors Self-Dispossessed), on which O "Neill began working back in the mid-30s. The writer intended to trace the rise, spiritual impoverishment and disintegration of the American family from the Revolutionary War to 1932 in order to get to the roots of the" drama of American materialism and passion for possession. "Shortly before O's death, Neil destroyed the manuscripts of the cycle: in addition to" Soul

poet "only a huge unfinished play" Richer Palaces "(More Stately Mansions, 1939, publ. 1964), whose action is attributed to the 70s of the last century, was accidentally preserved.

O "Neill was characterized by susceptibility to the latest natural science and

social doctrines, incessant creative burning, the search for new

dramatic forms capable of embodying his deep ideas. From school

O "Neal came out the largest of modern American playwrights,

continued the search of the master, developing further his tradition

psychological tragedy.

The changes taking place in literature at the turn of the 1910s and 1920s are evidenced by both prosaic and theatrical experience. Future Nobel laureate (1936) Eugene O "Neill (1888-1953) at the beginning of the 2nd decade of the 20th century. gradually abandons the principles of naturalistically oriented drama("Beyond the Horizon"; "Anna Christie"; "Wings are given to the children of God") in favor of expressionistic poetics ("The Shaggy Monkey", 22; "Great God Brown", 26), so that in further work these two tendencies reconcile to some extent. The landmark work for O'Neil was the tragedy "Passion under the Elms" (24). On the one hand, this is a drama about the desire to possess (land, woman, money), about the clash of opposite principles: male and female, "fathers" and "children" "dead" and "living", nature and creativity, convenient lies and cruel truth. On the other hand, a play about the waning of vitality in a once strong family, which takes place in New England with the participation of pronounced New England characters. However, the symbolic aspects of the method allow us to speak that in his gloomy drama, under the influence of G. Ibsen, A. Strindberg, the ideas of Nietzsche and Freud, O "Neill introduces many features that are not characteristic of naturalistic dramaturgy. In the play "The Shaggy Monkey" the author achieves a great expressionist effect by analyzing the collapse of the stoker Yank. Young and strong Yank deftly operates in the bowels of the ship. The firebox where he works in constant heat resembles a cage. Having failed in love, Yank is ready to step back, but he does not find himself in the past either. The play ends with a symbolic scene in the zoological garden: Yank, driven to despair, dies in the arms of a gorilla.

Drama "Wings are given to all children of men" dedicated to racial issues. Its name was a string of a popular spiritual. The spiritual song of the musical folklore of American blacks, like a deep leitmotif, accompanies the love story of black Jim Harris and white Ella Down and. They grew up together and would be happy in another world. But their love is doomed under the sidelong glances of neighbors, in a world where the color of the skin means more than the color of the soul, and conscience and morality are strangled by the skyscrapers of the cold octopus city. Eugene O'Neill continues to follow his aesthetic creed and depicts life as a tragedy that confuses all formulas and brings liberation "from the petty worries of everyday existence."

The playwriting of Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953) played a decisive role in the development of American drama and American theater of the 20th century as a whole. ONil creates a theater that breaks with a purely entertaining, pseudo-romantic tradition, on the one hand, and several provincial plays of national color, on the other. For the first time on the American stage, a high tragedy manifests itself, which has not only a national, dramatic, but also a general literary world sound.

An American playwright, a descendant of immigrants from Ireland, Eugene O'Neill was born on October 16, 1888 in New York in the family of an "actor of one role" (his father liked to play the role of the Count of Monte Cristo). His childhood passed "on wheels" - the theater often moved from city to city. O'Neill first studied at a Catholic boarding school, then in college, in 1906 he entered Princeton University, but after the first year he left it. Until the age of 30, he traveled a dozen countries: he wandered in Argentina and England, did business in Honduras, was also a gold digger there, sailed to Africa and South America for two years, until he got a job as a reporter in New London. There he fell ill with tuberculosis and, after six months of treatment, was "born a second time."

Y. O'Neill began to write one-act plays (the book "Thirst", 1914). As in the previous collection, so in the next "Moon over the Caribbean Sea", O'Neill, in contrast to salon dramaturgy, introduces new heroes into his works - sailors, vagabonds, drunkards, beggars, whose inner world is by no means simpler than the experiences of the heroes of family and everyday dramas .

The first work staged on the stage was the play "East to Cardiff" (1916) and was in an abandoned ship. It also became the author's New York debut.

The play "Thirst" had great publicity, in which the tragedy of three people was shown, who, after the catastrophe of the ship, found themselves in the middle of the open sea. These are works with a tragic sound, the living conditions of the characters and situations demanded from the author of the image up to naturalistic tones.

A little differently, already with the corrupted influence of gold, the baseness of human actions is depicted in the play "Gold" (1920). In the play "Love under the Elms" (1924), which went around all the stages of the world, there are only three characters - the old farmer Ephriam Cabot, still a strong man with an iron will to live, his young wife Abby, a practical, but also passionate nature, and his son Ebin, a little rough, but also with breakthroughs of deep soulfulness, act in this work. This work, behind the powerful force of primitive passions, resembles ancient tragedies. Indeed, the desire to own - land, money, beloved creature - leads to a terrible family tragedy.

The experimental plays "Emperor Jones" (1920) - about a wagon conductor who, after committing a crime, fled to Africa and became the leader of the islanders, and "Shaggy Monkey" (1922) - about the rebellion of a little man who chose a gorilla as a friend, were also very successful. . According to critics, avant-gardism in US drama began with the play by Y. O'Neill "The Great God Brown" (1926), created on the basis of the life of artists. Here the author uses the techniques of the conventional theater and the theater of masks. The play "Wings are given to all children of men" (1923) is permeated with anti-racist pathos.

The nine-act drama "Strange Interlude" (1928) is an original work, where the characters, in addition to dialogue, share their thoughts with the audience, addressing the audience. Mourning Befits Electra Trilogy (1929) - transferring the ancient tragedy of Agamemnon to the 19th century in the aftermath of the American Civil War. But the death of a whole family occurred not only by the will of fate, but also through the passions of the people themselves. O'Neill's only comedy - "Oh Wildness" (1933) - a lyrical work in which autobiographical motifs are read.

In 1936, Yu. O'Neill was the first American playwright to be awarded the Nobel Prize "for the power of influence, truthfulness and depth of dramatic works that interpret tragedies in a new, original way." Due to illness, the laureate did not arrive at the awards ceremony, but in the text of the speech he sent to the Committee, he emphasized: "For me, this is a symbol of the fact that Europe has recognized the maturity of the American theater."

The significance of O'Neill's work is far from exhausted by technical skill - much more important is his desire to break through to the meaning of human existence.

After receiving the Nobel Prize, O'Neill created three more masterpieces. "The Ice Carrier Is Coming" (1939) is consonant with M. Gorky's play "At the Bottom". There are also heroes - people of the "bottom", pubs and places of debauchery. For twelve years O'Neill did not publish, but he wrote a majestic series of dramas - showed the life of the USA for 100 years - "The story of the wealthy who dispossessed themselves." However, he created only two plays, Majestic Buildings (1939) and The Soul of a Poet (1942). The author destroyed other works shortly before his death.

The second masterpiece was the play "Long day goes into the night" (1941). Autobiographical features are clearly visible here. The protagonist suffers from a family atmosphere, unfair insults.

In the play "The Moon for the Stepchildren of Destiny" (1943), O'Neill continued the story of the fate of the eldest son of the family from the previous work - the further fall of the hero.

In 1943 the playwright fell ill. It was a difficult 10 years - exhaustion, health disorder, Parkinson's disease. O'Neill's plays were performed in theaters all over the world, yet he could not even write.

Eugene O'Neil

A play in one act

Hughie by Eugene O'Neill

Translation by I. Bershtein

Characters

Eri Smith, storytelling master

Night porter

The lobby of a small hotel on a street in New York's West Side. The time of action is between three and four in the morning in the summer of 1928.

This is one of those hotels that opened in 1900-1910. near the "Great White Road" and were at first inexpensive, but quite decent establishments, but then, in order to survive, they were forced to give up their positions. The First World War and prohibition forced its owners to abandon their pretense of respectability, and now it is an ordinary low-grade "haza" where everything is allowed for money and where anyone who can be lured is served. But even so, she is far from flourishing. The “big false boom” of the 1920s did not touch her. The "eternal abundance" of the New Economic Law was bypassed. And today the hotel exists only due to the fact that all the overhead costs for maintenance, repair and cleaning of the premises are reduced to almost nothing.

The counter is located on the left, in front of it is part of a shabby vestibule, a few shabby chairs. Entrance from the street - on the left behind the stage. Behind the counter is a telephone switchboard, in front of it is a revolving stool. To the right are the usual numbered mail nests, above them is a clock. The night porter sits on a stool with his back to the telephone switchboard, facing downstage. There is absolutely nothing for him to do. He doesn't think about anything. Doesn't want to sleep. He just sits, drooping and resignedly staring into the void. Look at the clock - only provoke yourself. He already knows that the end of his shift is far away. He doesn't even need a watch. Over the years he worked as a night porter in New York hotels, he learned to tell the time from the sounds of the street.

He is middle-aged - a little over forty - lanky, thin, his neck is lean, his Adam's apple sticks out. The narrow, elongated pale face is glossy with perspiration. The nose is large, but without any characteristic. Just like the mouth. And ears. And even liquid brown hair powdered with dandruff. The fixed brown eyes behind the glasses of horn-rimmed glasses are completely devoid of expression. They don't even seem to remember what it's like to feel bored. He is dressed in a baggy blue suit, a white button-down collar, and a blue tie. The suit is old, the jacket on the elbows is shiny, as if waxed.

Footsteps resound in the deserted lobby as someone entered from the street. The NIGHT PORTER rises wearily to his feet. His eyes are still empty, but his lips stretch rubberily into a kind of welcoming smile in accordance with the well-known law: "The customer is always right." At the same time, his large, uneven, rotten teeth are visible. ERIE SMITH appears and walks over to the counter. He is about the same age as the NIGHT PORTER, and has the same unhealthy pale, puffy, sweaty face of a night owl. However, this is where the similarities end. ERI is of average height, but seems shorter due to the fact that he has a massive torso and thick legs that are too short for his torso. And hands too. The square head sits deep on the neck, which merges with massive shoulders. The face is round, the nose is strongly upturned, wide. Blue eyes with swollen upper eyelids, dark bags under the eyes. The hair is whitish, noticeably thinned, there is a bald spot on the top of the head. He approaches the bar with a cheeky, casual gait, slightly swaying because of his short legs. In one hand, ERI holds a panama; he wipes his face with a red and blue silk handkerchief. He is dressed in a light gray suit, a jacket with wide lapels and close-fitting, in the Broadway fashion, in a deep neckline, an old, washed out, but expensive silk shirt of an unpleasant, disgustingly blue hue and a motley red and blue neckerchief with a greasy knot are visible. Trousers on a braided leather belt with a copper buckle. Shoes are beige and white, socks are white, silk.

He behaves like a kind of dashing frequenter of dens, a connoisseur who cannot be fooled on the chaff, and, indeed, plays small, bets on horses and generally feeds on the periphery of the Broadway racket. He and others like him live everywhere in dark corners, in porches, in cheap eateries and bars, they seem to themselves to be such cynical racetrack oracles, dedicated to the burning secrets of Broadway. ERI usually speaks in an undertone, looking around, suspiciously looking out from under half-closed eyelids if there are any curious people nearby. The facial expression is impenetrable, as befits an inveterate player. A small pursed mouth twists the always haughty smile of a connoisseur who knows everything, and, moreover, authentically, first-hand, and a quick, tenacious glance unmistakably distinguishes price labels on everything and everything. But there is something pretense in this, under the guise of an experienced hard worker, a sentimental weakness is hidden that does not fit with the image.

ERIE doesn't look at the NIGHT PORTER, as if he has something against him.

Erie (imperatively). Key. (But seeing that the NIGHT PORTER is unsuccessfully trying to remember him, reluctantly.) Well, you don't know me. Eri Smith i. The old inhabitant of this bedbug. Number four hundred ninety-two.

Night porter (with weary relief that there is no need to remember anything when removing the key). Yes, sir. Here is four hundred and ninety-two.

Erie (takes the key, giving the NIGHT PORTER his usual appraising look. The impression he has is rather favorable, but he still speaks unkindly). How long have you been at this job? Five days? But I wasn't there. Got drunk. Just woke up. I come to myself. It's a good thing they fired that brat who was hired to take Huey's place when he got sick. Built from myself. You can't tell anything like that. It's very nice to meet you, friend. I hope you don't resign.

ERI holds out his hand. The NIGHT PORTER obediently shakes it.

Night porter (with a helpful indifferent smile). Nice to meet you, Mr Smith.

Erie. What's your name?

Night porter (as if he himself had almost forgotten, because, generally speaking, does it really matter?). Hughes. Charlie Hughes.

Erie (shudders). What? Hughes? So you're not kidding?

Night porter. Charlie Hughes.

Erie. Well, you must! Just think about it. (With increased affection towards the NIGHT PORTER.) It's true, if you look closely, you certainly don't look like Hughie, but still you remind me of him in some way. Are you not related to him?

Night porter. Tom Hughes, who worked here for so many years and recently died? No sir. Not relative.

Erie (gloomy). Yes of course. Huey said that he had no relatives left - except for his wife and kids, of course. (He paused and became even gloomier.) Y-yes. Gave the poor fellow the ends that week. Since his funeral, I have been drinking. (Boasting, as if defending himself from darkness.) Set the sky on fire! It doesn't happen to me often. In my business, drinking is the death. You lose your vigilance and, look, you blurt out something, and you come to your senses, and there are people who are calmer if you were not there. That's what it means to know a lot. Take my advice, friend: never know anything. Live a lip-slap and take care of your health.

His speech becomes mysterious, ominous overtones are heard in it. But the NIGHT PORTER doesn't notice. Thanks to his rich experience of dealing with guests who stop at the counter in the middle of the night to talk about themselves, he developed a fail-safe technique of self-defense. He pretends to listen obediently, kindly, even sympathetically, but he himself turns off and remains deaf to everything except questions directly addressed to him, and it happens that he does not hear them either. ERI thinks he's impressed him.

Well, yes, damn it, my balls are always spinning, whether sober, drunk - it doesn’t matter. I'm not some kind of fool. So what did I say? Yes, about drinking. Wrapped up so that the sky was hot. You should have seen what blonde I grabbed the night before last. Ripped me to the bone. Blondes are my weakness. (Pauses and looks at the NIGHT PORTER with a contemptuous sneer.) You're married, aren't you?

Night porter (who has long been indifferent to whether he is asked tactful or tactless questions). Yes, sir.

Erie. I knew it! I was ready to bet ten to one. You have such a look, you can tell right away. Hughie had one too. Maybe that's all the similarities between you. (Chuckles contemptuously.) And kids, right?

Night porter. Yes, sir. Three.

Erie. Well brother, you're even worse off than Huey. He only had two. Three, you must! Y-yes, that's what negligence leads to. (Laughs.)

The NIGHT PORTER, as expected, smiles at the guest. At first he was a little offended when he heard this worn joke from the guests, for the first time, probably ten years ago - well, yes, the eldest, Eddie, is now eleven - or maybe twelve?

October 16, 1888 was born Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (Eugene Gladstone O "Neill) - American playwright, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1936, multiple winner of the Pulitzer Prize (1920, 1922, 1928, 1957 (posthumously)).

Eugene O'Neill, a descendant of immigrants from Ireland, was born in New York in the family of a "actor of one role" (his father liked to play the role of the Count of Monte Cristo). His childhood passed "on wheels" - the theater often moved from city to city. O'Neill first studied at a Catholic boarding school, then in college, in 1906 he entered Princeton University, but after the first year he left it. Until the age of 30, he traveled a dozen countries: he wandered in Argentina and England, did business in Honduras, was also a gold digger there, sailed to Africa and South America for two years, until he got a job as a reporter in New London. There he fell ill with tuberculosis and, after six months of treatment, was "born a second time."

O'Neill began writing one-act plays (The Thirst, 1914). All in all, he had forty one-act plays in his backlog, but he destroyed some. As in the previous collection, so in the next "Moon over the Caribbean Sea" and six other plays about the sea "(1918), O'Neill, in contrast to the salon dramaturgy, introduces new heroes into his works - sailors, vagrants, drunkards, prostitutes or beggars, whose inner world is by no means simpler than the world of the heroes of family dramas.

The first work staged on the stage was the play "East to Cardiff" (1916) and was in an abandoned ship. It also became the author's New York debut.

In 1918 O'Neill wrote the first major play, Beyond the Horizon. It was staged in 1920 on Broadway and was a huge success. In the annoying love triangle, O'Neill managed to find new facets. Love breaks the life of heroes. Under his influence, a romantic becomes a practitioner, a brother who loved the land - an unsuccessful speculator. The girl was also unhappy. Once the wrong decision is made, it leads to a catastrophe in life. A little differently, already with the corrupted influence of gold, the baseness of human actions is depicted in the play "Gold" (1920). In the same year, "Anna Christie" was staged, in which the author later changed the accents somewhat. The senior boatswain protects his daughter from life in ports and at sea: he sends her to her relatives. But there, due to a combination of circumstances and the cruelty of those around her, she ends up in a brothel. Her soul still remains pure, and only through the discovery of the truth to her beloved does she feel happy.

In the play "Love under the Elms" (1924), which went around all the stages of the world, there are only three characters - the old farmer Ephriam Cabot, still a strong man with an iron will to live, his young wife Abby, a practical, but also passionate nature, and his son Ebin, a little rough, but also with breakthroughs of deep soulfulness, act in this work. This work, behind the powerful force of primitive passions, resembles ancient tragedies. He wrote: "Practical vital interests and even selfish calculations are so closely intertwined with spiritual impulses of a high flight that it is sometimes difficult to decide what caused this or that act - a real feeling or a desire to inform another." Indeed, the desire to own - land, money, beloved creature - leads to a terrible family tragedy.

The experimental plays "Emperor Jones" (1920) - about a wagon conductor who, after committing a crime, fled to Africa and became the leader of the islanders, and "Shaggy Monkey" (1922) - about the rebellion of a little man who chose a gorilla as a friend, were also very successful. . Avant-garde in US drama, according to critics, began with Eugene O'Neill's play The Great God Brown (1926), based on the life of artists. Here the author uses the techniques of the conventional theater and the theater of masks. The play "Wings are given to all children of men" (1923) is permeated with anti-racist pathos.

In 1936, O'Neill was the first American playwright to be awarded the Nobel Prize "for the power of influence, truthfulness and depth of dramatic works that interpret tragedy in a new, original way." Due to illness, the laureate did not arrive at the awards ceremony, but in the text of the speech he sent to the Committee, he emphasized: "For me, this is a symbol of the fact that Europe has recognized the maturity of the American theater."

The second masterpiece was the play "Long day goes into the night" (1941). Autobiographical features are clearly visible here. The hero's father is a romantic actor, his mother is a drug addict, the eldest son is a drunkard who slowly sinks to the bottom of life. And the hero himself suffers from a family atmosphere, unfair insults.

In the play "The Moon for the Stepchildren of Destiny" (1943), O'Neill continued the story of the fate of the eldest son of the family from the previous work - the further fall of the hero.

In 1943, the playwright fell ill. It was a difficult 10 years - exhaustion, health disorder, Parkinson's disease. O'Neill's plays were performed in theaters all over the world, yet he could not even write. And to top it all, discord in the family, the suicide of his eldest son finished him off.