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Lyric gestures: major dramatists slip into bardic guises to take up the personal and political. (New Books).(Book Review)

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From: American Theatre
Date: 20030201
Author:Wetzsteon, Rachel

Why are there so many poets who also write plays, but so few playwrights who also write poetry? W.H. Auden's and William Butler Yeats's plays fill volumes; T.S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral is performed on hundreds of college campuses every year; Robert Frost wrote several wonderful Masques; and The Paris Review recently instituted a prize for verse drama.

But it's hard to imagine our most beloved contemporary playwrights venturing into poetry. David Mamet's plays sizzle with the manic, wounded characters of contemporary life--so how could an imagination so deeply dramatic ...

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