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Eugene O'Neill | |
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| Born | October 16, 1888 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | November 27, 1953 (aged 65) Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Occupation | Playwright |
| Education | Princeton University |
| Notable awards | Nobel Prize in Literature (1936) Pulitzer Prize for Drama (1920, 1922, 1928, 1957) Tony Award for Best Play (1957) |
| Spouse | Kathleen Jenkins
(m. 1909; div. 1912) |
| Children |
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| Parents | James O'Neill Mary Ellen Quinlan |
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Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism, earlier associated with Chekhov, Ibsen, and Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often included on lists of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.[1] He was awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize in Literature. O'Neill is also the only playwright to win four Pulitzer Prizes for Drama.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, ultimately sliding into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!).[2][3] Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
- ^ Harold Bloom (2007). Introduction. In: Bloom (Ed.), Tennessee Williams, updated edition. Infobase Publishing. p. 2.
- ^ The New York Times, August 25, 2003: "Next year Playwrights Theater will present an unproduced O'Neill comedy, Now I Ask You, a comic spin on Ibsen's Hedda Gabler."
- ^ The Eugene O'Neill Foundation newsletter: "Now I Ask You, along with The Movie Man, ... is the only surviving comedy from O'Neill's early years."