Conclusion

Abstract

If my argument about tragedy in the foregoing chapters is valid, it seems most unlikely that any American playwright or novelist will be able to write a genuine modern tragedy in the years to come. The premise of my argument, as I say in Chapter 5, is that only a rising society is capable of inventing a true modern tragedy. If the United States is now on the verge of decline, as many believe, and if I am right, we are not likely to see another tragedy as fine as those by Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, or Tennessee Williams, as all three were then writing at a time when the United States was ascending to world prominence.