Courses

The best works of all three major dramatists were produced within a twelve-year period (1945- 1956), but each playwright responds quite differently to changes in American society that resulted from the US emergence after WWII as a global Super Power: Tennessee Williams laments the passing of an old order under the glare of modernism; Eugene O’Neill charts the heartbreaks of desire in a greedy, materialistic world; Arthur Miller decries the erosion of moral responsibility under the reign of rampant capitalism. Collectively they dramatize irreconcilable conflicts between society, family, and individual interests that still resonate with many of our hopes and dreams and fears today.