Susan Keating Glaspell, Free Laughter

Linda Ben-Zvi (Tel Aviv University)

Ed. by Noelia Hernando-Real, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.3: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 2010

Places

United States (Country of Origin; Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

Free Laughter is unique among Susan Glaspell’s 14 dramas. It is one of her shortest plays, only 15 handwritten pages in manuscript form; it is her only allegory, and her only play never produced nor registered with the Library of Congress for copyright. Unknown until 1986, when, by chance, I discovered it among some of her papers in the Regie Cabral Private Collection in Provincetown, it was published for the first time in Susan Glaspell: The Complete Plays in 2010 (Ben-Zvi and Gainor, 117-24). Despite the fact that she wrote the play in 1919, Free Laughter remains as fresh, relevant and thought-provoking today as it was when she wrote it, since it describes a society disturbingly similar to …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

2161 words

Citation: Ben-Zvi, Linda. "Free Laughter". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 September 2019 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=38966, accessed 21 November 2024.]

Save this article