An American Tragedy: Memory and History in Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet and Mourning Becomes Electra

No matter how personal Eugene O'Neill's writing usually is, his plays also tend to express a general tragic feeling. Mourning Becomes Electra and A Touch of the Poet encapsulate this tension between the private and the public spheres. As he borrows from Greek tragedy and abides by some widespread generic rules, the playwright also tries to create a distinctively American form of tragedy. The tragic mode no longer relies on a heroic fall, hubris and godly revenge, but rather on a cathartic celebration of loss. By blending personal and national history, O'Neill stages the failure of the American Dream and presents America as a stillborn nation of lost ideals. However, this feeling of loss becomes the material for the expression of genuine poetic despair on stage.