Susan Keating Glaspell, Free Laughter

Linda Ben-Zvi (Tel Aviv University)

Ed. by 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 2010

Places

United States (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

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Free Laughter

is unique among Susan Glaspell’s 14 dramas. It is one of her shortest plays, only 15 handwritten pages in manuscript form; it is her only allegory, and her only play never produced nor registered with the Library of Congress for copyright. Unknown until 1986, when, by chance, I discovered it among some of her papers in the Regie Cabral Private Collection in Provincetown, it was published for the first time in

Susan Glaspell: The Complete Plays

in 2010 (Ben-Zvi and Gainor, 117-24). Despite the fact that she wrote the play in 1919,

Free Laughter

remains as fresh, relevant and thought-provoking today as it was when she wrote it, since it describes a society disturbingly similar to present-day America. In it she focuses on “the Red Scare”, that period begun at the end of…

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2161 words

Citation: Ben-Zvi, Linda. "Free Laughter". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 September 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38966, accessed 18 April 2024.]

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