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The Collected Drama of H. L. Mencken
Plays and Criticism
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Publisher:
2012
Summary
Throughout his career as a literary critic, H. L. Mencken was intent on elevating the bold, the daring, and the innovative over the hackneyed, the trite, and the superficial, and his drama criticism exhibits this tendency to the fullest. Though known primarily as a newspaperman and commentator, Mencken also wrote several one-act plays, as well as a full-length work.
In The Collected Drama of H. L. Mencken: Plays and Criticism, S. T. Joshi has assembled for the first time Mencken’s dramatic works, comprising six one-act plays and the lengthy three-act play Heliogabalus. These plays, which have never been reprinted since their original appearances in newspapers or in Mencken’s early volume A Book of Burlesques (1916), exhibit Mencken’s penchant for satire and ridicule. Several of the plays, such as In the Vestry Room and The Wedding: A Stage Direction, display Mencken’s oft-expressed cynicism about the institution of marriage. Another related play is Asepsis, a satire on exaggerated concerns about sexual health in young married couples. Other plays take aim at the cultural deficiencies of the common people, such as Death: A Philosophical Discussion, which relays the hackneyed reactions of a group of mourners over the death of a friend. Mencken’s most significant play by far is Heliogabalus, a play he co-wrote with his frequent collaborator, George Jean Nathan, in which Mencken expresses his scorn of the Christian religion.
The second half of this book features a selection of Mencken’s early writings (1905–17) on drama, most of which have never been reprinted. Various essays on Shakespeare, Shaw, Synge, Strindberg, Ibsen, and others exhibit Mencken’s keenness as a literary critic and his understanding of the aesthetic possibilities of the drama. With an introduction by the editor who provides an overview of Mencken’s work as a dramatist and drama critic, this collection will be of interest to amateur and even professional drama companies, theatre historians, and of course, anyone interested in the writings of Mencken.
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Bibliographic data
Copyright year
2012
ISBN-Print
978-0-8108-8369-7
ISBN-Online
978-0-8108-8370-3
Publisher
Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language
English
Pages
269
Product type
Edited Book
Table of contents
ChapterPages
Contents No access
Introduction No access Pages 1 - 6
The Artist: A Drama without Words No access
In the Vestry Room No access
Seeing the World No access
Asepsis: A Deduction in Scherzo Form No access
Death: A Philosophical Discussion No access
The Wedding: A Stage Direction No access
Heliogabalus: A Buffoonery in Three Acts No access
“By Way of Introduction” to George Bernard Shaw: His Plays No access
William Shakespeare No access
A Drama of Ideas No access
A Plea for Comedy No access
Et-Dukkehjemiana No access
The Revival of the Printed Play No access
The New Dramatic Literature No access
Brieux and Others No access
The Terrible Swede No access
Synge and Others No access
Gerhart Hauptmann No access
Thirty-five Printed Plays No access
The Ulster Polonius No access
Ibsen: Journeyman Dramatist No access
Notes No access Pages 249 - 260
Index No access Pages 261 - 268
About the Editor No access Pages 269 - 269
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