Call number: LD2668 .T4 1932 T45

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1978 B86 / Master of Arts

Thesis (M.F.A.)--Boston University. Boston University School of Fine and Applied Arts Graduate thesis production book submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Fine Arts, 1961.

The disparity of style and quality between O'Neill's early (1920-1932) and later (1932-1940) plays is explored in this study with emphasis upon O'Neill's use of auto symbolic motifs in the later plays, A Touch of the Poet, The Iceman Cometh, and Long Day's Journey Into Night: O'Neill's ability to fuse these auto symbolic motifs into coherent plots creates an emotional intensity in these plays which was absent from his early plays. Beginning with the composition of Ah Wilderness! (1932) O'Neill's plays diverge conspicuously from the earlier compositions, in terms of plot simplicity, character population, reenactment 3f experience in the style of realism, and unity of action and idea. These are the characteristics of his style during the later period which allowed him to make powerful symbols from common objects (autosymbols), such as a uniform and a thoroughbred mare in A Touch of the Poet, a drunkard who despises illusions in The Iceman Cometh, and a wedding dress, a note, and a bank of fog in Long Day's Journey Into Night.Chapter One of this study reviews those characteristics of O'Neill early plays which Eric Bentley has called O'Neill's "notorious faults." According to Bentley and others, O'Neill's early plays are too idea oriented, that is, the themes and symbols of such plays as Mourning Becomes Electra, Strange Interlude, and The Great God Brown do not arise from the action of the story but appear to be grafted onto the story.Chapter One demonstrates that O'Neill's early plays are dramatically ineffective compared to the later ones because of the pretentiousness of his ideas, themes and symbols, and that the incoherent stories and grafted symbolism of the early plays are the result of this pretentiousness.Ronald Peacock's definition of dramatic art is cited in order to demonstrate O'Neill's faulty approach to the drama during the early period and in order to provide a way of talking about the superior quality of the later plays. Before 1932, O'Neill wrote plays in order to demonstrate philosophic ideas; for example, in Dynamo he confronted the idea of the death of the old gods and the failure of science to replace the old gods, but his effort failed because he created an experience (plot) in order to discuss his idea. According to Peacock, this method is backwards; the great play is an experience reenacted as idea, not an idea reenacted as experience. Chapter One suggests that O'Neill's tendency to create a story which demonstrates an idea led him into the grafted symbolism and incoherent plots of the early period, and that this tendency is responsible for the poor characterization of the early plays in which characters such as Nina Leeds, Lavinia Mannon, and Lazarus of Bethany seem too concerned with superpersonal ideas to exist as individuals. After the composition of Ah Wilderness! O'Neill reversed his aesthetic and reenacted experience as ideas.Chapter Two shows how, beginning with his planned cycle, A Tale of Possessors Self-Dispossessed, O'Neill placed a growing emphasis upon simplicity of action and individualized characterization, In A Touch of the Poet, for example, the simplicity of action allows O'Neill to create Con Melody, a vibrant and totally believable character. Although the themes of love-hate relations between family members, excessive pride, and escapism are not new to the O'Neill canon, they now arise from the action and character instead of being grafted onto the work. Furthermore, the principal agent for the transmission of these themes is O'Neill's use of the auto symbolic mare and uniform. Also, the symbolic are not merely associated with an individual, but cluster around each of the major characters of the play. In this way these symbols are auto symbolic because they are both symbol of the idea and simultaneously objects of action-in the plot.These same qualities are characteristic of the symbol of Hickey in The Iceman Cometh. He is both a character in the play and a symbolic figure. In Chapter Three Hickey's dual role associates him symbolically with the lie of the pipe dream and the difficulty and necessity of moral reform. In the play, it becomes obvious that Hickey is a symbol of hopelessness when it is revealed that his reform is also an illusion. Because he is a three-dimensional figure as well as a symbolic figure he is auto symbolic.Chapter Four suggests that Mary's wedding dress, Tyrone's note from Booth, and the fog which encases the Tyrone household are O'Neill's most poignant and emotional auto symbols. O'Neill perfected his symbolic technique in this masterpiece, Long Day's Journey Into Night, in the final scene when Mary carries her wedding dress, which is symbolic of the past and at the same time literally an object of action.In concluding remarks, it is shown that we may account for some of the disparity of style and quality between the early and later plays by an examination of the simplicity of action and unity of symbol and action in A Touch of the Poet, The Iceman Cometh, and Long Day's Journey Into Night, and that the beginning of O'Neill's rejuvenated vision of the drama occurs when he first sketched the cycle, A Tale of Possessors Self-Dispossessed.

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Reconciliation of human plurality, with the commonality requisite for egalitarian political order, is arguably the central question confronting political thought today. The thesis is a response to Hannah Arendt’s insight that in the wake of the twentieth-century demise of metaphysical ultimates, we must affirm human capacity for autonomous judgment as fundamental to sustaining a world ‘fit for human habitation’. It consists of a theory of autonomy (or practical reason) designed to fully address pluralism, historicism and the critique of identity/difference. In the light of Onora O’Neill’s constructivist reading of Kantian reason, autonomy as ‘creative action’ is defended as the minimal human commonality which must be presupposed, to account for trans-cultural justice grounded in communication rather than coercion. The account of autonomy employs Kant’s notion of the ‘unconditioned’: freedom from determinate causes; that which is common to all by virtue of being particular to none. Kant’s merely formal concept is reconceived as a substantive experience within the world: the momentary suspension of existing cultural forms, identified as both a formal and substantive prerequisite to overcoming prejudices, and the achievement of trans-cultural communication. Building on Hans-George Gadamer’s tradition-dependent notion of hermeneutic judgment, creative action consists of first ‘receptive attention’, the suspension of existing understandings, pre-conceptions etc., and open receptivity to what is there, and second, ‘responsive judgment’, revitalisation of authoritative standards internal to a ‘vital sphere of practice’ – a realm of human activity whose authoritative standards are constituted through creative action. Creative action is defended as a minimal, generic prerequisite for the realisation of any transcendent value (such as truth, justice and beauty) within a vital sphere of practice. This ideal of autonomy coheres with a pluralist ideal of society as a web of equal, autonomous yet interdependent vital spheres of practice. A distinctive feature of the thesis is that it provides, in addition to a maximally-capacious account of autonomy, a radically pluralist ontological and epistemic framework. Contemporary political thought embracing human plurality and difference has for the most part been wary of metaphysical ultimates, opting for epistemic abstinence and avoiding explicit metaphysical commitments. I argue, however, that a substantive, philosophical account of the possibility of trans-cultural justice requires admission of that which transcends the culturally-conditioned, as well as adherence to some notion of philosophical truth. As western thought has inherited from Platonism and the Judeo-Christian tradition a view of truth as monological, universal and unchanging, radical, pluralist revisions are required. Within the proposed two-tiered epistemology, creative action takes the place of reason. This epistemic framework retains the transcendent content of truth, while fully acknowledging the cultural-relativity of particular socio-cultural forms. It allows the theory to stand as a substantive, philosophically-vindicated theory of autonomy, but without rendering it vulnerable to post-structuralist charges of cultural-imperialism. The thesis shows that the universalist, egalitarian commitments of the Kantian tradition can be reconciled with strong commitment to difference and diversity, but only if the philosophical and political realms abdicate their traditional positions of privilege vis a vis other spheres of practice.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1961. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliographical footnotes. Bibliography: leaves 464-478. List of James M. O'Neill's writings: leaves 479-492.

In December of 2016, the Theater Department at Southern Illinois University (SIU) presented a production of Beyond the Horizon by Eugene O’Neill. This play, the first full-length published by O’Neill, is the journey of the Mayo family as they deal with love, loss, and the persistent need to continue reaching for a dream. This thesis document will outline my struggles to create an idealistic horizon while keeping the main characters physically rooted to their farm. Chapter 1 details my analysis of the source material and includes reviews on symbols and connections between characters. Chapter 2 is a narrative on my experience during the design process, and Chapter 3 is a review of my work and a personal critique.