Myth in American Drama Between the Wars

MYTH IN AMERICAN DRAMA BETWEEN THE WARS ASIDE FROM EUGENE O'NEILL, whose use of myth deserves extended treatment,1 the most important and prolific playwrights of the period were Maxwell Anderson, Philip Barry, Sidney Howard, Robert Sherwood , and Elmer Rice.2 All showed some understanding of myth, which, although it cannot be compared to that of Tennessee Williams and others since World War II, is revealing of the playwrights and the period. According to Thomas Mann, "Myth is the foundation of life, the timeless schema, the pious formula into which life flows when it reproduces its traits out of the unconscious."3 If myth is the timeless schema into which life flows, it cannot be the temporal propensity of a period, for example, the "myth" of the American innocent or the American frontier, or the Nazi superman, unless such an idol fits the pious formula of some myth which from primitive times has emerged from the subconscious. The question of whether myth can be called myth until it has ceased to be literally believed is a semantic controversy' avoided by Mann's definition, as is the question of the ethical value of myths. The investigator of myth is not concerned with what man should be but with what he is. So long as men come to a point in their lives where they feel guilt, they will believe in 1 In a survey of almost any characteristic of modern American drama, one fact emerges-the outstanding contribution of Eugene O'Neill. His feeling that masks in many dramas-perhaps in most-would add to the essential theme, his instinctive recognition of the power of the syncopated drum beat, his worship of the sea as the mother goddess of mankind or as the devil, his understanding of Oedipal family relationships, his satirical outlook on man's worship of the machine instead of his essential Dionysian and Apollonian nature, his intuitive feeling that God should be and once was a woman, his clear presentation of the life God Eros and the death God Thanatos in conflict and in collusion, his worship of the earth mother, his awe of the primal father, his feeling for resurrection from death in both Biblical and pagan mythology, his sense of the timeless and the cyclic, his comprehension of the rites of passage to manhood, his portrayal of the progress of the tragic hero to self-recognition, and other fundamental mythical ideas are innate in his plays. 2 Playwrights like Odets, Hellman, Kingsley, Saroyan, and Wilder wrote important plays toward the end of the period, and Marc Connelly and Paul Green dramatized the Negro's interpretation of Christian mythology-all of whom might logically be included in an extensive survey. Several writers of sophisticated comedy, of whom S. N. Behrman is foremost, made only minor use of myth. S Joseph Campbell, The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology (New York, 1959), p. 18. 'David Bidney, Theoretical Anthropology (Columbia University Press, New York, 1953), Chap. X, "The Concept of Myth." 294 1963 MYTH IN AMERICAN DRAMA 295 Adam and Eve; so long as they have an irresistible impulse to bury or immolate the dead, they will believe in Antigone; so long as outstanding men are born, they will believe in miraculous births; and so long as men live in families, they will believe in Oedipus. The psyche of beings from outer space may be different, but the psyche of man makes it impossible for him not to live by the concepts which his subconscious mind evolves. If myth is the foundation of life, it is worth investigating, even in minor manifestations. Since Maxwell Anderson, the most prolific playwright of the period , made use of history, he came into contact with figures which are archetypal by virture of fulfilling the hero's role and thus made more obvious use of myth than did the other four playwrightssometimes superficially, but in his best play, Winterset, intrinsically. The ill-fated lovers in Winterset have been compared most frequently to Romeo and Juliet, but of course, since the Gods have always been jealous of earthly lovers, they partake of all, whether their names be Pyramis and Thisbe or Tristram and Isolde. Judge...