The purpose of this paper is to investigate the aspects of theatre and family in Eugene O’Neill’s historical play A Touch of the Poet, which belongs to the late period of his writing career. The purpose is also to examine O’Neill’s characteristics as historical playwright, as he is more commonly known for his great tragedies. First, based on the meta-theatrical framework that positions Con Melody, the main character, as a role-playing actor in front of other characters within the play, this paper investigates how the melodramatic revenge motif reflects the history of American melodrama through the autobiographical tendency of this play in which fictional characters are related to the father, a famous actor in the mid 19th century, and the son, a playwright in O’Neill’s own family. O’Neill’s treatment of melodramatic revenge in the play shows his own artistic development in that at first he has contempt for the theatre of his father and tries to avoid it, but eventually he has to come to terms with it.
Second, this paper examines the aspect of family in the play. A Touch of the Poet, as a historical play, shows how an Irish immigrant family settles in Yankee-dominated society in Boston. Through the linear progress of succeeding generations of the Irish family and the Yankee family, this play shows the death of dreams and poetry, and the triumph of acquisitiveness and trickery. The rise of the Irish family and the decline of the Yankee family is reflected in the presidential election of 1828, when Andrew Jackson (the Democrat) is about to defeat President John Quincy Adams(the National Republican), and Jacksonian democracy marks the beginning of mass democracy in America. In conclusion, O’Neill’s view of time and democracy is shown through the temporal progression of the play and the historical background, the presidential election year of 1828.