James A. Herne and Lamoine, Maine

Abstract

JAMOINE, Maine, today is as tranquil and idyllic as James A. Herne, American dramatist, found it over threequarters of a century ago. Across Frenchman's Bay, Bar Harbor on Mount Desert Island swarms with tourists, while Lamoine State Park, sloping from main street in Lamoine to edge of bay, has only an occasional visitor. This gentle slope was once Shore Acres, as pioneer realist called it in his play by that name. The historical reality of Lamoine's land boom, which became basis for Herne's Shore A cres, adds another dimension to our understanding of his best play. First, however, we must see just how dramatist adapted this reality to his own concept of realism and to his aesthetic principles. In Shore Acres Herne gave fullest expression to what life had taught him, to what he believed life to be.' His aesthetic -art for truth's sake-is more applicable to Shore Acres than to any of his other plays. In fact, his essay, Art for Truth's Sake in Drama, is directly derived from few weeks he spent in Lamoine, Maine, and from his popular Shore Acres. It is this drama that develops latent beauty of so-called commonplaces of life, that dignifies labor and reveals, in character of Uncle Nathan'l Berry, the divinity of