Baldwin, James (Vol. 17) - Walter Meserve

WALTER MESERVE

The fact that [Baldwin] equated playwriting with improving a troubled world [as he did in an observation made in high school] explains his theory of drama quite clearly. It may also explain why he is not a better playwright and why he has not written more plays. While the theatre brings the most immediate response for the propagandist; it also brings adverse criticism…. It is perhaps vital to note that although he used similar theses and argued the same points in his fiction and in his plays, he used different major characters in his plays which essentially remove Baldwin, his own model-hero, from the center of the work. For some reason the drama forces him to change his attitude toward his material….

Whether he is writing fiction or drama, however, Baldwin has parlayed a youthful "agony" into a philosophic view of life. (p. 172)

The major problem in the "agony way" is one of identity. (p. 173)

The significance of his...

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