Stages of Thought: Emerson, Maeterlinck, Glaspell

This article examines the dramatic Platonism of Susan Glaspell in order to establish early-twentieth-century American drama as an integral component in a transatlantic movement of ideas. The essay contends that the ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson permeate Glaspell’s plays, by way of Maurice Maeterlinck, whose theatrical practices Glaspell adopted. Maeterlinck sought to stage Emerson’s concept of the “over-soul” in his development of static theatre. Glaspell, in turn, refigured Maeterlinck’s dramatic techniques and Emerson’s philosophical concepts as both uniquely modernist, American drama and ground-breaking feminist theatre.