LIT 499-01 Lincoln Konkle-
Thornton Wilder & Drama Theory
Our Town is one of the leading candidates for the “The Great American Play,” and it’s for this dramatic masterpiece that Thornton Wilder is best known. Yet Wilder was one of the most versatile authors in American letters, having written plays, novels, screenplays, librettos, translations, essays, and scholarly articles. He remains the only writer to win a Pulitzer Prize for both drama (Our Town, The Skin of Our Teeth) and fiction (The Bridge of San Luis Rey). This section of 499 will study Wilder’s full-length plays, most of his one-act plays, 2-3 of his novels, some of his essays on theatre and drama and American characteristics, and his screenplay for the Alfred Hitchcock film Shadow of a Doubt. There will also be supplementary readings on dramatic theory (tragedy, comedy).