The Establishment of American Realism in James A. Herne's Hearts of Oak

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  • James A. HerneのHearts of Oakにみるアメリカン・リアリズムの萌芽
  • James A. Herne ノ Hearts of Oak ニ ミル アメリカン ・ リアリズム ノ ホウガ

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Abstract

Margaret Fleming (1890) has been acclaimed as James A. Herne's most notable accomplishment as a founder of realism in American theatre by such theatre critics as Arthur Hobson Quinn, Hyatt Howe Waggoner and Herne's biographer, John Perry. Nevertheless, Hearn was not without his detractors; Dorothy S. Bucks and Arthur H. Nethercot point out that this play was conceived under the heavy influence of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House (1879), which was first introduced to American Theatre in 1889. Therefore, it has been argued that a great deal of Herne's achievement should have been credited to Ibsen. This assumption, however, holds true only if we presume that Herne's plays before Margaret Fleming had been far from drama of realism. Yet Herne, even in his earlier work, Hearts of Oak (1879), shows his inclination toward realism in the sense that it eliminates the clear distinction between virtues and vice, and instead emphasizes the characters' social backgrounds, environments and inner struggle, leading the dramatist to create such works of realism as Drifting Apart (1888), Margaret Fleming, Shore Acres (1893), and Sag Harbor (1900) in the later part of his dramatic career. This paper, accordingly, examines to what extent Herne's realism can be said to be original, through the analysis of Hearts of Oak and Sag Harbor. In particular, Herne's depiction of the negative aspects of marriage in these works will be examined, together with how it relates to the making of realism in American theatre.

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