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University of Notre Dame Press - Edward L. Shaughnessy

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152 pages

English

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This latest book from veteran O’Neillian Edward L. Shaughnessy examines the influence of the Irish playwright’s Catholic heritage on his moral imagination. Critics, due to O'Neill's early renunciation of faith at age 15, have mostly overlooked this presence in his work. While Shaughnessy makes no attempt to reclaim him for Catholicism, he uncovers evidence that O'Neill retained the imprint of his Irish Catholic upbringing and acculturation in his work.

Shaughnessy discusses several key plays from the O’Neill cannon, such as Long Day’s Journey into Night, The Iceman Cometh, and Mourning Becomes Electra, as well as the lesser-known Ile and Days Without End.

Winner of the Irish in America Manuscript competition, Down the Days and Down the Nights: Eugene O’Neill’s Catholic Sensibility is a compelling investigation into the psyche of one of the most brilliant, internationally honored playwrights of our time.

Sujets

Religion

Christianisme

Literary Criticism

20th Century

Literary Figures

Modern

Modern history

Ile

Mourning Becomes Electra

Ireland

Playwright

Catholic

Christianity

Stephen Ireland

The Iceman Cometh

Le deuil sied à Électre

Obermodern-Zutzendorf

Informations

Publié par	University of Notre Dame Press
Date de parution	20 juin 2000
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9780268092979
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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DOWN THE NIGHTS AND DOWN THE DAYS
T HE I RISH IN A MERICA
Studies Sponsored by the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism
DOWN THE NIGHTS AND DOWN THE DAYS
Eugene O Neill s Catholic Sensibility
Edward L. Shaughnessy
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana
University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, IN 46556
www.undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved
Copyright 2000 University of Notre Dame
Published in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Shaughnessy, Edward L., 1932-
Down the nights and down the days : Eugene O Neill s Catholic sensibility / Edward L. Shaughnessy.
p. cm. - (Irish in America)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-268-00895-7 (alk. paper)
1. O Neill, Eugene, 1888-1953. 2. American drama-Catholic authors-History and criticism. 3. Dramatists, American-20th century-Biography. 4. Drama-Religious aspects-Christianity. 5. O Neill, Eugene, 1888-1953-Religion. 6. Catholics-United States-Biography. 7. Catholic Church-Doctrines. 8. Irish Americans-Religion. I. Title. II. Series.
PS3529.N5Z79696 1977
812 .52-dc20
[B]
96-27117
CIP
ISBN 9780268092979
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 239.48-1984.
This e-Book was converted from the original source file by a third-party vendor. Readers who notice any formatting, textual, or readability issues are encouraged to contact the publisher at ebooks@nd.edu .
Once again, of course, for Janet,
and for Peg, Katie, Molly and Kevin-
Pax et felicitas .
Out of the depths I cry unto you, O Lord ,
O Lord, hear my voice .
Let thy ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplication .
-Psalm 129
I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter .
-Francis Thompson
Life s a tragedy-hurrah!
-O Neill
Contents
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Part One The Reluctant Apostate
1 . The Lad, the Rebel, the Artist
The O Neills: Cradle Catholics
Training and Education
Greenwich Village, Radicals, and the Provincetown Theatre
Dorothy Day
2 . Catholic Memory, Classic Forms
Catholic Sensibility: A Brief Definition
O Neill the Traditionalist
O Neill and the Timeless Issues of Sin and Guilt
What a modern tragedy would have to be
3 . Church Authority, Artistic Freedom, and the Search for God
A Note on the Climate of Opinion
O Neill and the Catholic Press
The Substitute-God Search : Brief Remarks on Three Plays
The Great God Brown
Lazarus Laughed
Strange Interlude
Part Two Catholic Sensibility and Thematic Development
An Introductory Note
4 . Plays: Early Period (1916-1923)
Ile
Beyond the Horizon
All God s Chillun Got Wings
5 . Plays: Middle Period (1924-1933)
Desire Under the Elms
Mourning Becomes Electra
Ah, Wilderness!
6 . The Catholic Play: Days Without End (1934)
7 . Plays: Late Period (1939-1943)
The Iceman Cometh
Long Day s Journey into Night
A Touch of the Poet
More Stately Mansions
A Moon for the Misbegotten
Epilogue
Appendix The Immigrant Church Press and the Catholic Writer, 1920-1950
Notes
Index
Acknowledgments
I T IS DIFFICULT TO SAY how or when this project began. I remember a saintly Benedictine monk who once cautioned that reading Eugene O Neill was asking for trouble. Perhaps he was right, although the same might be said about reading Shakespeare and Dostoevski. Over the years dozens of other good men and women have provided counsel and, happily, encouragement. I wish to thank some who have been especially generous. Without their support I could not have traveled very far along the road of this enterprise.
I extend thanks to the following individuals: Scott Appleby and Barbara Lockwood of the Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism, who have been exceptionally supportive; Professors Thomas E. Porter and Paul R. Valliere, for their useful suggestions after reading an early version or section of the manuscript; Lewis Miller and Nancy Everett, Director and the Collection Management Supervisor, respectively, of Irwin Library, Butler University; fellow O Neillians Travis Bogard, Margaret Loftus Ranald and Frederick C. Wilkins, for advice and encouragement; Fr. Thomas J. Daly of the Boston Chancery Office, for recollections of diocesan attempts to be put in touch with Eugene O Neill when the playwright was dying; Sr. Regina Shaughnessy, S.P., for keeping me in mind; and for others who should be named, in justice and affection-Irving Fine, George Hoffmann, James McCaslin, and Francis Quinn.
To archives and archivists (every researcher s best friends) I extend gratitude: the Special Collections Division, Lauinger Library, Georgetown University, for permission to quote from letters of Daniel Lord, S.J., to Martin Quigley and from Eugene O Neill to Martin Quigley; the Memorial Library Archives, Marquette University, for use of materials in the Dorothy Day and Catholic Worker collections; to the Hesburgh Memorial Library, University of Notre Dame, for photographs and a letter, Eugene O Neill to Laurence Lavanoux; the Cushwa-Leighton Library, St. Mary s College, for a letter from Louis Sheaffer to Sr. M. Madeleva, C.S.C.; to the Dinand Library, the College of the Holy Cross, for letters exchanged between Michael Earls, S.J., and Richard Dana Skinner.
For permissions to quote passages from The Plays of Eugene O Neill , volumes 1, 2, and 3 (1983) and from A Moon for the Misbegotten (1952), I should like to thank Random House; from Long Day s Journey into Night (1956), A Touch of the Poet (1957), and More Stately Mansions: The Unexpurgated Edition , Martha Gilman Bower, ed. (1988), I acknowledge with thanks to Yale University and the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Library. I am grateful for permission to reprint excerpts from Eugene O Neill in Ireland: The Critical Reception (1988), an imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc., Westport, Conn.
The Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism at the University of Notre Dame supported this project in the form of a stipend that accompanied the 1994 Hibernian Research Award.
My deepest gratitude to Janet and our children for their constancy and cheerful support.
Prologue
I N THE THREE quarters of a century leading up to Vatican Council II, the world of American Catholicism was massively established. It is not surprising, then, that we are staggered by its later undoing. For that world is no more. When John XXIII threw open the windows of the Vatican, not zephyrs but a hurricane swept through the church. Indeed, the consequences of that heroic gesture defy easy summary: not only has the institution itself been radically transformed, but the very character of our times has been altered by the Council. In 1900 the American Catholic church was a phenomenon quite different from that same communion as it exists today. To many of its faithful it was the very center and focus of life. If we fail to recognize that essential fact, we cannot begin to estimate its influence on the life of yesterday s everyman, including that of the apostate genius, Eugene O Neill.
Many Catholics of that earlier period saw their church as this world s chief repository of truth. In that community one felt secure in the accepted definitions of reality (of good and bad, that is). For a Catholic coming of age in the first half of the twentieth century, certain words carried a theological plausibility that today seems positively quaint. Sin and redemption were such words. For some outsiders, Roman Catholicism itself must have seemed an anachronism. Here was an institution that commanded loyalty and obedience, even as it had in the Middle Ages. But to its members, the church s promise to endure until the end of time was taken as a very article of faith. For Holy Mother had transformed the tragedy of suffering into the salvific mystery of the via dolorosa . Who could deny her stunning appeal? In defining its role, this church invoked both the law of love and the symbols of authority. Her mission was to console the dispirited, a work of mercy named in the Sermon on the Mount. But the church could play equally well the role of stern patriarch, whose icy glare of disapproval could paralyze the soul of dissenter or rebel. One might love the church or leave it (or both). Its claims, however, would remain deeply etched in the Catholic psyche. Such was the power that formed the moral vision of the faithful. It played no small part in forming the worldview of James and Ella O Neill and that of their sons, James, Jr., and Eugene Gladstone.
Eugene left the church as an adolescent. Asked in 1946 if he had returned to Catholicism, he responded, Unfortunately, no. None, then, should attempt to make of him something that he was not. The aim here is to see the something that he was. In addition to his (anyone s) impenetrable mystery, O Neill was sometimes a fearful, intimidating presence. In his searing honesty he often startled his interlocutors. Thus, he no doubt raised eyebrows when he remarked at a final rehearsal for The Iceman Cometh, In all my plays sin is punished and redemption takes place . 1 Most students of O Neill will agree that this is an astonishing declaration. What did it mean?
When he used such language, O Neill understood full well its power and nuances. But there is absolutely no reason to think he accepted the doctrinal authority the words conveyed to believing Christians. That given, an even greater mystery attaches to his utterance. For, whatever he meant, we may be certain that he was neither joking nor playing the card of obscurantism. Not O Neill.
Those who turn in sorrow or anger fro