Eugene O'Neill's America
Desire Under Democracy
- Contents
- Review Quotes

Introduction: Knowers Unknown to Ourselves
1. The Misery of the Misbegotten
2. The Playwright as Thinker
3. Anarchism: The Politics of the "Long Lonliness"
4. Beginnings of American History
5. "Lust for Possession"
6. Possessed and Self-dispossessed
7. "Is You a Nigger, Nigger?"
8. "The Merest Sham": Women and Marriage
9. Religion and the Death of Death
10. "The Greek Dream in Tragedy Is the Noblest Ever"
11. Waiting for Hickey
Conclusion: The Theater as Temple
Notes
Index
“Biographers have published dozens of books on Eugene O’Neill over the last 50 years in an attempt to explain the complexities of America's 20th-century ‘master playwright.’ What makes Diggins’s thoroughly researched effort particularly effective is his use of political, philosophical, social, psychological, and religious themes in his discussion of O’Neill’s life and plays within the context of a dynamic American society. Diggins begins with a narrative describing O’Neill’s troubled early personal life and follows with thematic chapters discussing the major influences on the playwright’s writing, from contemporary philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche to the ancient Greek tragedians. Diggins generously illustrates each theme with multiple examples from O’Neill’s plays and correspondences. Particularly insightful are his comparisons of O’'Neill’s work with that of other great writers on the theme of American democracy, including Alexis de Tocqueville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Abraham Lincoln. This book offers the reader a lot to think about, regarding not only O’'Neill’s life and work but also American society at large.”
History: American History | History of Ideas
Literature and Literary Criticism: American and Canadian Literature
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