With these words Tennessee Williams addressed theatrical audiences
in 1944, through the voice of “Tom Wingfield” at the opening of The
Glass Menagerie. So it was with some anticipation and curiosity that we
first examined an unpublished story entitled “In Spain There Was
Revolution,” the writing of which may be dated to the period depicted
in the play. We found the typescript filed and indexed among the
Tennessee Williams Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research
Center at the University of Texas at Austin. On the first page, in the top
right-hand corner, Williams himself has written down a retrospective
judgment on this early effort. “Not a bad story. Rather prophetic. T. W.
(Written about ’36).”
“In Spain There Was Revolution” is thus a contemporary record,
more immediate and direct than the memories later staged in The Glass
Menagerie, of the young writer’s feelings about the relationship of
Americans to the wider world. Those feelings were often politically
charged, responding to the sufferings, uncertainties, and global ideological
struggles of the 1930s. While the protagonists of “In Spain There
Was Revolution” seem scarcely aware of these realities, in the final
dialogue Williams emphasizes the fragility of the luxurious isolation
that makes their summer idyll possible. Perhaps, then, by the age of
twenty-five or so, “Tom” Williams had begun to view the selfishness of
youth ironically—as a symbol of the narcissistic impulse that makes
America a place so alluringly, yet dangerously, self-indulgent.
“Rather prophetic.” Sometime after the outbreak of the Second
World War, Williams remarked how his early story resonated beyond the
limits of its original inspiration. (In fact, during the early 1940s he
would reuse the “In Spain . . .” phrase in another, still unpublished
typescript at HRHRC, an allegorical one-act play entitled Act of Love.)
When we brought “In Spain There Was Revolution” to the Editor of The
Hudson Review, she likewise noted its relevance to our own times. We can
do no better than to call upon Tom Wingfield for a conclusion:
In Spain there was Guernica! But here there was only hot swing
music and liquor, dance halls, bars, and movies, and sex that hung in
the gloom like a chandelier and flooded the world with brief, deceptive
rainbows. . . . All the world was waiting for bombardments!
Much to read :)
in 1944, through the voice of “Tom Wingfield” at the opening of The
Glass Menagerie. So it was with some anticipation and curiosity that we
first examined an unpublished story entitled “In Spain There Was
Revolution,” the writing of which may be dated to the period depicted
in the play. We found the typescript filed and indexed among the
Tennessee Williams Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research
Center at the University of Texas at Austin. On the first page, in the top
right-hand corner, Williams himself has written down a retrospective
judgment on this early effort. “Not a bad story. Rather prophetic. T. W.
(Written about ’36).”
“In Spain There Was Revolution” is thus a contemporary record,
more immediate and direct than the memories later staged in The Glass
Menagerie, of the young writer’s feelings about the relationship of
Americans to the wider world. Those feelings were often politically
charged, responding to the sufferings, uncertainties, and global ideological
struggles of the 1930s. While the protagonists of “In Spain There
Was Revolution” seem scarcely aware of these realities, in the final
dialogue Williams emphasizes the fragility of the luxurious isolation
that makes their summer idyll possible. Perhaps, then, by the age of
twenty-five or so, “Tom” Williams had begun to view the selfishness of
youth ironically—as a symbol of the narcissistic impulse that makes
America a place so alluringly, yet dangerously, self-indulgent.
“Rather prophetic.” Sometime after the outbreak of the Second
World War, Williams remarked how his early story resonated beyond the
limits of its original inspiration. (In fact, during the early 1940s he
would reuse the “In Spain . . .” phrase in another, still unpublished
typescript at HRHRC, an allegorical one-act play entitled Act of Love.)
When we brought “In Spain There Was Revolution” to the Editor of The
Hudson Review, she likewise noted its relevance to our own times. We can
do no better than to call upon Tom Wingfield for a conclusion:
In Spain there was Guernica! But here there was only hot swing
music and liquor, dance halls, bars, and movies, and sex that hung in
the gloom like a chandelier and flooded the world with brief, deceptive
rainbows. . . . All the world was waiting for bombardments!
Much to read :)
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário