David Palmer taught philosophy and literature at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, USA. His interest in ethics, philosophy of mind, and theories of the self led him to explore the plays of Samuel Beckett, Arthur Miller, and Eugene O'Neill. He is the president of the Arthur Miller Society and a board member of the Eugene O'Neill Society.

• Notes on ContributorsForewordby Christopher Bigsby, University of East Anglia, UKAcknowledgementsIntroductionby David Palmer, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, USA1. Eugene O'Neill (1888-1953)by Jeffery Kennedy, Arizona State University, USA2. Susan Glaspell (1876-1948)by Sharon Friedman, New York University, USA3. Langston Hughes (1902-1967)by Jonathan Shandell, Arcadia University, USA4. Thornton Wilder (1897-1975)by Jackson R. Bryer, University of Maryland, USA5. Lillian Hellman (1905-1984)by Anne Fletcher, Southern Illinois University, USA6. Tennessee Williams (1911-1983)by Susan C. W. Abbotson, Rhode Island College, USA7. Arthur Miller (1915-2005)by Stephen Marino, St. Francis College, USA8. Edward Albee (1928-2016)by Natka Bianchini, Loyola University Maryland, USA9. Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965)by Deirdre Osborne, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK10. Amiri Baraka (1934-2014)by Harvey Young, Northwestern University, USA11. Adrienne Kennedy (1931-)by Werner Sollors, Harvard University, USA12. August Wilson (1945-2005)by Sandra G. Shannon, Howard University, USA13. Sam Shepard (1943-2017)by Shannon Blake Skelton, Kansas State University, USA14. David Mamet (1947-)by Brenda Murphy, University of Connecticut, USA15. Marsha Norman (1947-)by David Palmer, Massachusetts Maritime Academy, USA16. Tony Kushner (1956-)by Claire Gleitman, Ithaca College, USA17. Suzan-Lori Parks (1963-)by Soyica Diggs Colbert, Georgetown University, USA18. American Theatre Since 1990by Toby Zinman, University of the Arts, USAPermissionsIndex

Tragedy has always been a hard sell in America. Ours is a nation that, as scholar Christopher Bigsby states in David Palmer’s superlative anthology Visions of Tragedy in Modern American Drama, “was not a natural home for the tragic spirit, having been wed since its beginnings to a melioristic ideal.” Nevertheless, Eugene O’Neill, the playwright heralded for transporting tragedy to the forefront of America’s dramatic imagination, insisted that “truth, in theatre as in life, is eternally difficult just as the easy is the everlasting lie.” Tragedy, O’Neill argued, was hard-earned by audiences bold enough to look deeply and critically at themselves and their society, and this was what made it worthwhile. Visions of Tragedy covers many hard “truths” about America and its inhabitants, as unleashed by the nation’s greatest tragedians from O’Neill to our own time. Each of the essayists—an all-star cast in American drama studies—presents their argument in vibrant prose and with expert critical insight, never getting bogged down in academic jargon or doublespeak. Visions of Tragedy is destined to be a classic of American drama studies, clarifying and amplifying the diverse scope of tragic visions that have, for over a century, unflinchingly interrogated our shared national inheritance.