1. EUGENE O'NEILL AND HIS WORKS Eugene O'Neill is generally considered as the foremost American dramatist whose works reflect truly the lives and pursuits of the American people in the 20th century and reveal vividly their rich inner world. In his lifetime, O'Neill wrote about fifty plays and won three Pulitzer Prizes. In 1936, he was awarded Nobel Prize for his great contribution to world literature, which was a precedent in the dramatic history of America. Three years after his death, O'Neill, for the fourth time, was granted the Pulitzer Prize for the great theatrical success of his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night (1956). Of all the American playwrights, O'Neill is today best known in England, France, Germany, Russia, and he is highly esteemed by most Chinese dramatic experts. Wang Yiqun, the famous expert in American drama, called O'Neill "father of American drama" (Wang, p.6) and commented that "What America owed to O'Neill is just like what England owed to Shakespeare, Norway to Ibsen, Russia to Chekov, and Germany to Brecht." (Wang, p.9)
