O’Neill’s Transcendence of Melodrama in A Touch of the Poet and A Moon for the Misbegotten

I have limited this discussion to a pair of late O'Neill plays which transcend melodrama by means of their comparable plots, themes, and characterizations. They are similar chiefly in that both begin with formulaic melodramatic intrigues which are spoofed or actually displaced as the plays develop. I intend in time to explore this theme in all O'Neill's later drama. Melodrama, just about everyone is agreed, is indefinable, though that has not stopped people from attempting to define it.l In Europe of the mid-nineteenth century, it meant a serious play with much scenic spectacle, musical background, a set of "stock" characters (which usually included a hero, heroine, and a villain), and an ending in which the "right" (the definition of which was not subject to discussion) always triumphed. Later, it was broadened to include any play, serious or comic, which was built around an elaborate set of intrigues; which contained a good deal of secrecy, deception, and evasion; in which the dialogue was full of explosive outburst and unexpected revelation; and which was peopled by the old stock characters