Le Théâtre Tragique ed. by Jean Jacquot (review)

92 MODERN DRAMA May made without a searching analysis of his plays, into which he poured all ht§ secret obsessions. The light reflected from his dramatic visions may illuminate the recesses of his inner life. Here we may discover his yearning for a mother that he could possess totally; his distrust of all women because of his mother's betrayal; his rejection of his father's God; his alienation from the establishment and his revolt against its authorities in any guise; his creation of a world of the mind to confound external "reality"; and ultimately his tragic conception of man. On many occasions the Celbs do attempt to relate the events of O'Neill's life to his plays, but where they go beyond the obvious parallels, the results are not uniformly happy. Their comparison of the dull Philistine god William Brown with O'Neill's brother Jamie may turn that anarchic, Dionysian spirit restless in his coffin. Another time the Celbs contend that O'Neill's early conception of the main characters of Mourning Becomes Electra "clearly indicated that . . . this was to be yet another examination of the emotional fabric of the O'Neill family." Although they mention certain superficial similarities (for example, the order in which Lavinia loses father, mother, and brother), the real biographical source is deeper: in the incestuous rivalries and hatreds which can destroy a family. Cer· tainly the basic situation where the helpless father is murdered by an adulterous mother bears no resemblance to O'Neill's parents. The Gelbs' connection of Desire Under the Elms with Euripides' Hippolytus and Medea is tenuous at best. The evidence is overwhelming that Desire was inspired by such Strindberg works as Son of a Servant, The Bridal Crown, and The People of Hemso, as well as by Nietzschean motifs of paganism and the superman. As for the truly perceptive criticism of The Iceman Cometh, this the Gelbs borrowed from other writers. 'Vhen these flaws have been discounted, the fact remains that the Celbs have mined a great store of valuable ore, not likely to be equalled in future, if only because many of the interviewees who knew O'Neill will have died. The great critical biography of O'Neill remains to be written; when it is, it will be deeply indebted to the work of the Gelbs. MVRRAY HARTMAN Long Island University LE THEATRE TRACIQUE, ed. Jean Jacquot, Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, 1962, 46NF. Both the dimensions and the scope of this impressive contribution to the litera· ture on tragedy suggest the encyclopedia, and most readers will probably prefer to use it as such, conSUlting those chapters or essays which deal with their particular in terests. The five-hundred page volume, edited by Jean Jacquot, Director of Research at the CNRS, brings together a brilliant array of critical minds, shedding light upon the works of the many periods and countries in which tragedy, or something called tragedy, has been written. The essays, originally presented, Monsieur Jacquot tells us in his introduction, as part of a conference at Royaumont in May and December, 1960, are frankly presented as contributions to a seminar on tragedy, and this honesty adds a delightful bit of life to the work. The point of view adopted is a historical one, which is to say, an empirical one. Taking a general definition of tragedy as "a dramatic action which comes to grips with some of the fundamental problems of existence and of the human condition," the contributors have attempted to deal with specific works in specific 1%3 BOOK REVIEWS .. 93 periods, rather than to develop a theoretical definition of tragedy. This leads, as Henri Gouhier (doubtless he most important philosopher of drama in France today) says, to a great richness, for these scholars are attempting to perceive Ie tragique, which, unlike la tragedie, is a dimension of real existence. The essays constantly remind us that real scholarship is not only imaginative and exciting, but at the same time is modest and liberal in its attitudes. The lack of a narrow, dogmatic, or parochial outlook is, of course, not surprising in a gathering including such distinguished men of letters...