Green, Paul (Eliot) - Introduction

Paul (Eliot) Green 1894–1981

American dramatist, novelist, and short story writer.

Throughout his career, Green's best work incorporated a respect for American tradition and folklore, along with a realistic and sensitive portrayal of the dignity of the oppressed individual.

Green's first full-length play, In Abraham's Bosom, won the 1927 Pulitzer Prize for drama. The play concerns the plight of an ambitious young black man whose attempts to improve his life end in tragic failure.

The Lost Colony, a depiction of the first British settlement in America, was performed at an outdoor theater and began a series of historical regional plays written by Green. As Green saw it, the restrictions of the Broadway theater could not "contain the richness of [the American] tradition." He called his plays "symphonic dramas," a mixture of dialogue, music, and dance.

(See also Contemporary Authors, Vols. 5-8, rev. ed., Vol. 103 [obituary]; Contemporary Authors New Revision Series, Vol. 3; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vols. 7, 9; and Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1981.)