Reviews 195 there were many fine revelations. Confronted by a school of “metadrama” I feel, while not doubting the excellence of each contributor, I have strayed into a scholastic Cave of Error where the method has become more absorbing than the drama. MARIE AXTON N ew n h am C ollege, C am bridge Eugene O’Neill, T h e C alm s o f C apricorn: A P relim inary E dition , Vol. I, The Scenario, transcribed by Donald Gallup; Vol. II, The Play, de veloped by Donald Gallup. New Haven: Yale University Library, 1981. Vol. I, pp. xviii + 64; Vol. II, pp. 122. Eugene O’Neill, W ork D ia ry 1924-1943, transcribed by Donald Gallup, preliminary edition. 2 vols. (including “Scribbling Diary for 1925”). New Haven: Yale University Library, 1981. Pp. iv >+ 522. E ugene O ’N eill a t W ork: N ew ly R eleased Ideas fo r P lays, ed. Virginia Floyd. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1981. Pp. xxxix + 407. $25.00. A treasure trove of materials at Yale, hitherto restricted by terms of the O’Neill estate, is now being opened to scholars. As part of this pro cess, several publications of importance (including an interesting scenario by O’Neill) have appeared, and there are hints of other projects under way. Virginia Floyd has given us E ugene O ’N eill a t W ork: N e w ly R eleased Ideas fo r P lays, a major compendium that enlarges our understanding of what the playwright did and what he tried to do. In addition, Donald Gallup, former Curator of the Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, has published O’Neill’s W ork D iary, which will enable us to trace O’Neill’s annual—and some times daily—progress on his plays. Moreover, a new uniform edition of O’Neill’s plays, textually accurate and more complete than any in the past, is currently under consideration. (O’Neill’s letters to Kenneth Macgowan , the producer, also have been made available; they will be reviewed in a future issue of this journal). It appears, then, that the only significant body of material still under restriction is that pertaining to “A Tale of Possessors, Self-Dispossessed,” O’Neill’s unfinished cycle of eleven plays tracing the fortunes of an American dynasty from pre-revolutionary days to the present. We were told in the past by O’Neill’s biographers that, except for scattered notes, these plays were never realized, and that those that were near completion were destroyed. Only A T ouch o f the P o et escaped the flames. But in 1964, Gallup, with Karl Ragnar Gierow of the Swedish Royal Dramatic Theatre, brought out a “shortened,” “edited,” and “partly revised” script of M ore S tately M ansions constructed from O’Neill’s unfinished drafts. A T ouch o f th e P o e t was to be the third play in the Cycle; M o re S tately M ansions was the fourth. Now Dr. Gallup has “developed” (his word) the fifth play, T h e C alm s o f C apricorn, from O’Neill’s extant scenario, and he has published the scenario itself as a check against his work. Naturally, readers will be eager to open this gift, but publication of T he C alm s o f C apricorn only deepens the mystery. How many other scenarios are in the vault, and will O’Neill’s legendary Cycle one day rise from the ashes, patched by other hands? Such an enterprise, however well-intentioned, raises serious editorial questions. To draw an analogy, Leonardo left his A d oration o f th e M agi incomplete, finishing only a coating of monochrome underpaint; does anyone wish some art historian to “develop” it? What of Schubert’s U nfinished S ym ph on y, or Keats’ fragment “Hyperion,” or the subsequent volumes of T he B rothers K a ra m a zo v that Doestoevsky intended? One thinks of those clay restorations of Neanderthal physiognomies, replete with frowns and pasted hair, that have been extrapolated from skeletal evidence by...
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Dec 1, 1996
Sandra Markham 
Open Access