Susan Keating Glaspell, The People

Noelia Hernando-Real (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: J. Michael Duvall (College of Charleston), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Tony Papanikolas (San Jose State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1917

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

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Recommended Reading

Susan Glaspell's

The People

opened on 9th March 1917, during the first New York season of the Provincetown Players. Even though

The People

is considered one of Glaspell's lesser plays, its significance relies on its novel form as well as on the topics she treats: the relationship between artist and audience, radical journalism and the role of women in revolutions.

The People opens in the office of “The People: a Journal of the Social Revolution”, a morning in March 1917. This is “the office of a publication which is radical and poor” (33), with little furniture strewn with manuscripts and papers, and wads of papers on the floor. Soon the audience is told that the journal is about to close due to financial problems. The one-act starts as a comedy of manners where Tom, the printer,

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1915 words

Citation: Hernando-Real, Noelia. "The People". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 21 August 2009 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=15998, accessed 09 May 2024.]

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