English 102 Rockett

Susan Glaspell in Context not only discusses the dramatic work of this key American author -- perhaps best known for her short story "A Jury of Her Peers" and its dramatic counterpart, Trifles -- but also places it within the theatrical, cultural, political, social, historical, and biographical climates in which Glaspell's dramas were created: the worlds of Greenwich Village and Provincetown bohemia, of the American frontier, and of American modernism. The chapter on "Trifles" begins on page 37.

For the first time, this volume brings together essays by feminist, Americanist, and theater scholars who apply a variety of sophisticated critical approaches to Susan Glaspell's entire oeuvre. Glaspell's one-act play, "Trifles," and the short story that she constructed from it, "A Jury of Her Peers," have drawn the attention of many feminist critics, but the rest of her writing--the short stories, plays and novels--is largely unknown. The essays gathered here will allow students of literature, women's studies and theater studies an insight into the variety and scope of her oeuvre. "Trifles" is covered at length on pages 65 through 78.

Pulitzer Prize-winning dramatist, founding member of the Provincetown Players, best-selling novelist and award-winning short fiction writer, Susan Glaspell (1876-1948) has been recovered from the marginalization of women writers that took place in the post-war period of canon-formation in America. Scholars are now fully realizing the extent to which her stories and novels, as well as all of her plays, reflect a deep engagement with the major literary movements and political events of her age. A realist concerned with issues of social justice and a modernist committed to exploring the psyche, Glaspell through her art provides thoughtful commentary, not only on feminist issues of women and gender, but on war, class, socialism, idealism, aesthetics, ethics and law. Refer to the chapter on "Foreshadowing "A Jury of Her Peers".