Abstract
There are four aspects of Eugene O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape (1921) that, because of the play’s strong naturalist-expressionistic stylistic component, have hitherto been neglected or completely ignored: first its “comedy,” as O’Neill describes it in the subtitle, “A Comedy of Ancient and Modern Life in Eight Scenes”; second, its connection, or opposition, to Italian futurism; third, its choice of so lowly a protagonist as Robert “Yank” Smith to symbolize humanity itself; and last, the relationship of The Hairy Ape to ancient Greek tragedy.
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Cardullo, R.J. (2015). O’Neill’s The Hairy Ape in Relation to Greek Tragedy, Italian Futurism, and Divine Comedy. In: A Play Analysis. SensePublishers, Rotterdam. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-280-6_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-280-6_6
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