J. B. | Later Poetry and Drama
In the following essay excerpt, Falk examines J.B. within the context of the morality play, focusing on similarities between it and the story of Job in the Bible.
Writing in 1955, MacLeish rejected T.S. Eliot's statement that no play should be written in verse if prose were ‘‘dramatically adequate.’’ He answered Eliot by saying that prose is adequate for an illusion of the actual; but, if the dramatist is concerned with the "illusion of the real,’’ then he is concerned with ‘‘the illusion which dramatic poetry can pursue.’’ He gave as examples "the illusion of Oedipus apart from the plot,’’ or ‘‘the metaphor of Prospero's island,’’ or ‘‘Yeats' Purgatory,’’ or [The entire page is 5104 words long] The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:
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