Eugene O'Neill's Unfinished Threnody and Process of Invention in Four Cycle Plays

This is a detailed and intimate analysis of O'Neill's complicated writing process as he created four of the plays in the eleven-play cycle: A Touch of the Poet, More Stately Mansions, The Calms of Capricorn, and Hair of the Dog. The first two are the only plays finished by O'Neill. The others have enough substantive material to give the reader a sense of what the plays would have been. Having transcribed reams of O'Neill's unpublished handwritten notes, outlines, and scenarios, Bower focuses on the `pre-writing' leading up to each play's final draft. Breaks new ground in unfolding a subtext that reveals new autobiographical analogues and connections to the late plays, and reveals O'Neill's development of a female character unique to American literature.