Willa Cather and Eugene O\u27Neill: A bond of tragedy

Liberation, emancipation, freedom--all have been used to describe the particular nature of the United States’ post World War One era; certainly, the period manifested these characteristics, but along with its revolution in manners and morals, the roar of the 1920s brought with it a renaissance in American literature. Primarily, the time was one of the foremost and limitless variety: a time when writers, freed from tradition by the catalyst of war, could experiment with new forms and techniques; a time when they could reject nineteenth-century idealism in favor for criticism; a time when they could explain man\u27s behavior with the new psychology of Freud, and a time when they could record the effects of science, technology, and urbanization upon a nation previously agrarian and self-contained. The height of the American drama was reached during this period, and the direction of American poetry would never be the same following Elliott\u27s The Wasteland. Still, the age is remembered as one of frantic gaiety and frivolous pastime