The Early Twenties

Abstract

The nineteen-twenties in America, which experienced a cultural awakening with the work of such rebels as Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, H. L. Mencken, Theodore Dreiser, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, also witnessed an enormous outpouring of creative activity by Eugene O’Neill, already in 1920 America’s leading dramatist. His ‘radical’ work — unlike the output of those writers protesting against America’s shallowness and materialistic values and debasement of self-realization — concentrated on the possibilities of his dramatic art rather than on social issues, although he did touch these issues. Prolific to the point of excess, experimenting with new ways to present his tragic themes, O’Neill bewildered those who wished to formulate him in a phrase. Often unsuccessful in the sense that his plays did not produce the desired effects, O’Neill ruthlessly used his medium in ways that pressed against its bounds. Experimental, restless, unable to remain with one kind of success — in fact, distrusting success — he exhibited to the American Twenties a productivity and boldness that has never been matched by any American playwright at any time.