The Collected Drama of H. L. Mencken

Plays and Criticism

Buch | Hardcover

274 Seiten

2012
Scarecrow Press (Verlag)
978-0-8108-8369-7 (ISBN)

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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.

S. T. Joshi edits the scholarly journals Lovecraft Studies and Studies in Weird Fiction and is the author of H. P. Lovecraft: A Life (2004), Gore Vidal: A Comprehensive Bibliography (Scarecrow Press, 2007), and H. L. Mencken: An Annotated Bibliography (Scarecrow Press, 2009).

Introduction by S. T. Joshi
Part I. The Plays
The Artist: A Drama without Words (1909)
In the Vestry Room (1910)
Seeing the World (1913)
Asepsis: A Deduction in Scherzo Form (1913)
Death: A Philosophical Discussion (1914)
The Wedding: A Stage Direction (1915)
Heliogabalus, by H. L. Mencken and George Jean Nathan (1920)
Part II. Mencken on Drama
“By Way of Introduction” to George Bernard Shaw: His Plays (1905)
William Shakespeare (1910)
A Drama of Ideas (1910)
A Plea for Comedy (1910)
Et-Dukkehjemiana (1910)
The Revival of the Printed Play (1911)
The New Dramatic Literature (1911)
Brieux and Others (1911)
The Terrible Swede (1912)
Synge and Others (1912)
Gerhart Hauptmann (1913)
Thirty-five Printed Plays (1914)
The Ulster Polonius (1916)
Ibesen: Journeyman Dramatist (1917)
Notes
About the Editor

Verlagsort	Lanham, MD
Sprache	englisch
Maße	160 x 234 mm
Gewicht	567 g
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Lyrik / Dramatik ► Dramatik / Theater
Themenwelt	Kunst / Musik / Theater ► Theater / Ballett
ISBN-10	0-8108-8369-4 / 0810883694
ISBN-13	978-0-8108-8369-7 / 9780810883697
Zustand	Neuware