Journal article
"Another Play on Salem Witch Trials": Lion Feuchtwanger, Communists, and Nazis
Comparative drama, Vol.43(3), pp.355-378
10/01/2009
DOI: 10.1353/cdr.0.0068
Abstract
According to a popular introduction to this work, the inspiration for Arthur Miller's play was The Devil in Massachusetts (1949), a historical study, albeit not without fictional elements, about the Salem witch trials by Marion Starkey.1 It is a little-known fact that the GermanJewish émigré writer Lion Feuchtwanger (7 July 1884, Munich-21 December 1958, Los Angeles) published a play about the Salem trials before Arthur Miller did. [...] a recent study on the reception of Feuchtwanger's works in Germany since 1945 only briefly touches on the play, stating as evident that it represented the author's reaction to the beginning of the McCarthy era and intended to draw parallels between persecutions of "witches" and leftists.12 Only one short comparison with Miller's Crucible has been undertaken, in which Robert F. Bell takes a stand against the widespread critical belief that both plays about the Salem witch hunts serve as allegoric treatments of the conduct of the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- "Another Play on Salem Witch Trials": Lion Feuchtwanger, Communists, and Nazis
- Creators
- Waltraud Maierhofer
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Comparative drama, Vol.43(3), pp.355-378
- Publisher
- Western Michigan University, Department of English
- DOI
- 10.1353/cdr.0.0068
- ISSN
- 0010-4078
- eISSN
- 1936-1637
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 10/01/2009
- Academic Unit
- International Programs; German; Interdisciplinary Programs
- Record Identifier
- 9984398010102771
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