This volume explores the reception of the classical past in the works of twentieth-century American dramatist Robert E. Sherwood and his use of the ancient world to critique key events and trends in American history. It explores his comedies and the influence of both Greek Old and New Comedy, as well as his mediation of his experiences in World War I through Livy’s account of the war with Carthage. During the 1930s, Sherwood used the Peloponnesian War as a template for bringing to the attention of an unaware public the danger of an impending war between the forces of democracy and the totalitarianism represented by Nazi Germany, and post-war he raised awareness of the dangers of nuclear war through the lens of the Greek gods. As well as looking at his use of the classical past in his work, since Sherwood wrote drama deeply concerned with the major social and political events of his day, his plays open windows onto the major social and political challenges facing the United States and the world from the outbreak of World War I until the beginning of the nuclear age. This volume will be of interest to anyone working on the Classical Tradition and Classical Reception, as well as to students of twentieth-century American literature, drama, history, and politics.
Author(s): Robert J. Rabel
Series: Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2021
Language: English
Pages: xii+170
Robert E. Sherwood and the Classical Tradition: The Muses in America
Table of contents
List of Figures
Preface
Notes
Introduction: A group of brilliant people named Robert E. Sherwood
I Life
II Dramatist and screenwriter
III Living ruins
IV Robert E. Sherwood in the Classical Tradition
Notes
1 The curious case of Barnum Was Right
I From Burlesque to the Broadway Revue
II War and politics: the Peloponnesian War and World War I
III America and Athens: war and civic freedom
IV America and Athens: changing aesthetics
V Robert E. Sherwood on film
VI Barnum Was Right as Old Comedy
VII Barnum Was Right as New Comedy
Notes
2 Robert E. Sherwood on The Road to Rome: The ghosts of battle
I Background to The Road to Rome
II The Road to Rome and New York City
III The Road to Rome and George Bernard Shaw
IV Afterlife of The Road to Rome
V Sherwood and history
Notes
3 Acropolis
I Acropolis: writing history in the future tense
II Literary agon and Acropolis
III The Bildungsroman of Alcibiades
IV Aspasia as scapegoat
V Pheidias: art, democracy, and the divine
VI Acropolis: 1937
Notes
4 Post Acropolis, post Apocalypse
I Idiot’s Delight
II Abe Lincoln in Illinois: a play in twelve scenes
III There Shall Be No Night
IV Post apocalypse
Coming to terms with the bomb
Notes
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Books and journals
Unpublished Sherwood plays available on order from Houghton Library, Harvard University
Newspapers and magazine articles
Videos and CDs
Index
