O'Neill, Eugene. "A Long Day's Journey into Night." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym, et al. New York: Norton, 2003.

I'm teaching this play for an Introduction to Literature class I start in a matter of days. One thing much underread (if not flat-out unread) in English departments, or at least mine, is plays, and sometimes I think this is right. It would be absurd to read screenplays in a class, particularly one taught in a room with a working VCR/DVD player. Isn't it then absurd also to read a play in a class where all you've got in front of you is the script, with no actors, no stage, no scenery? But we do this, or, at least, certain anthologies continue to include plays, and certain playwrights are continually regarded as VIPs in the realm of literature, or, like letters. Is it that the percentage of the final work that is taken up by the script of the play is a lot greater than the percentage taken up by a screenplay, or, in other words, that the playwright is the play?

Are plays literature, or are they theatre?

At any rate, this one's good because it's so goddamn bleak. I don't have much more to say about the thing—which is frightening given the fact that I'll soon be teaching it to a roomful of teens—but few works of literature are better ended.

"I fell in love with James Tyrone and was so happy for a time. [She stares before her in a sad dream. TYRONE stirs in his chair. EDMUND and JAMIE remain motionless.]"

CURTAIN