House of Notes

O’Neill’s Art of Characterization Art and Vision Inseparable O’Neill’s art of characterization is inseparable from his vision of life. And because he experimented with one dramatic form after another for projecting his view, his art of characterization varied in every stage of his development. He was disguised with those who tended to label him either as a naturalist or a pessimist or romanticist and wished sympathetic critics called him an experimenter with all the modes of apprehension. “To be called ‘a sordid realist’ one day, he said, ‘a grim pessimistic Naturalist’ the next, a ‘lying Moral Romanticist’ the next, etc. is quite perplexing… … So I’m really longing to explain and try and convince some sympathetic ear that I’ve tried to make myself a melting pot for all these methods, seeing some virtues for my ends in each of them, and thereby, if there is enough real fire in me, boil down to my own technique.” Different Periods of Chara...