Lionel Abel (28 November 1910- 19 April 2001, in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, New York)Reisman, Rosemary M. Canfield. "Lionel Abel." ''Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia'' (2013): ''Research Starters''. Web. 11 July 2014. was an eminent Jewish American

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

essayist An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

and

theater critic A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as Art criticism, art, Literary criticism, literature, Music journalism, music, Film criticism, cinema, Theater criticism, theater, Fas ...

. He was also a translator, and was an authorized translator of

Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and litera ...

, who called Abel the most intelligent man in New York City. His first success was a tragedy, ''Absalom'', staged

off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

in 1956 and winner of the

Obie award The Obie Awards or Off-Broadway Theater Awards are annual awards originally given by ''The Village Voice'' newspaper to theatre artists and groups in New York City. In September 2014, the awards were jointly presented and administered with the A ...

. It was followed by three other works of drama, before he turned to criticism. He is best known for coining the term

metatheatre Metatheatre, and the closely related term metadrama, describes the aspects of a play that draw attention to its nature as drama or theatre, or to the circumstances of its performance. "Breaking the Fourth Wall" is an example of a metatheatrical dev ...

in his book of the same title. He was one of the signers of the

Humanist Manifesto II ''Humanist Manifesto II'', written in 1973 by humanists Paul Kurtz and Edwin H. Wilson, was an update to the previous ''Humanist Manifesto'' published in 1933, and the second entry in the ''Humanist Manifesto'' series. It begins with a statemen ...

Biography

Born in Brooklyn, Abel was the son of Alter Abelson, a rabbi and poet, and of Anna Schwartz Abelson, a writer of short stories. His brother,

Raziel Abelson Raziel Abelson (24 June 1921 – 14 June 2017) was an American academic. He served as Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at New York University and was a proponent of the Ordinary Language School of Philosophy. Biography He was born in Brooklyn, ...

(1921–2017) was a professor emeritus of philosophy at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

; he also had two sisters. He graduated from high school at the age of fourteen and moved out of his parents' home when he was fifteen, also shortening his name around this time. He attended St. John’s University in New York from 1926 to 1928, and then transferred to the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

, which he attended from 1928 to 1929.''Lionel Abel''. n.p.: Gale, 2001. ''Literature Resource Center''. Web. 11 July 2014. However, he was expelled for publishing a magazine and never earned a college degree. Afterwards, he moved to Greenwich Village in New York. In 1939, he married Sherry Goldman, whom he later divorced. In 1970, Abel married Gloria Becker.

Career

Despite never obtaining a college degree, he was offered a professor position at the

State University of New York at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

because of his writings. After teaching appointments at Columbia and

Rutgers Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was a ...

Universities and at the

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

, he concluded his academic career in the English Department of the

University at Buffalo The State University of New York at Buffalo, commonly called the University at Buffalo (UB) and sometimes called SUNY Buffalo, is a public research university with campuses in Buffalo and Amherst, New York. The university was founded in 1846 ...

, before retiring to New York City. He is also the author of several important translations from the French, including texts by

André Breton André Robert Breton (; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') o ...

and

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

. A lively and sometimes cantankerous polemicist, he counted numerous members of his generation's intellectual elite among his friends and sparring partners, including

Delmore Schwartz Delmore Schwartz (December 8, 1913 – July 11, 1966) was an American poet and short story writer. Early life Schwartz was born in 1913 in Brooklyn, New York, where he also grew up. His parents, Harry and Rose, both Romanian Jews, separated when ...

Meyer Schapiro Meyer Schapiro (23 September 1904 – 3 March 1996) was a Lithuanian-born American art historian known for developing new art historical methodologies that incorporated an interdisciplinary approach to the study of works of art. An expert on earl ...

Clement Greenberg Clement Greenberg () (January 16, 1909 – May 7, 1994), occasionally writing under the pseudonym K. Hardesh, was an American essayist known mainly as an art critic closely associated with American modern art of the mid-20th century and a formal ...

Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects i ...

Randall Jarrell Randall Jarrell (May 6, 1914 – October 14, 1965) was an American poet, literary critic, children's author, essayist, and novelist. He was the 11th Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—a position that now bears the title Poet ...

Lionel Trilling Lionel Mordecai Trilling (July 4, 1905 – November 5, 1975) was an American literary critic, short story writer, essayist, and teacher. He was one of the leading U.S. critics of the 20th century who analyzed the contemporary cultural, social, ...

James Agee James Rufus Agee ( ; November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955) was an American novelist, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, writing for ''Time Magazine'', he was one of the most influential film critics in the United States. ...

, Mary McCarthy,

Hannah Arendt Hannah Arendt (, , ; 14 October 1906 – 4 December 1975) was a political philosopher, author, and Holocaust survivor. She is widely considered to be one of the most influential political theorists of the 20th century. Arendt was born ...

Leslie Fiedler Leslie Aaron Fiedler (March 8, 1917 – January 29, 2003) was an American literary critic, known for his interest in mythography and his championing of genre fiction. His work incorporates the application of psychological theories to American lit ...

and Elizabeth Hardwick.

Criticism of Hannah Arendt

Abel participated in the heated debate that followed the publication of Arendt's ''

Eichmann in Jerusalem ''Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil'' is a 1963 book by political thinker Hannah Arendt. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the major organizers ...

''. He criticized the work in "an outright frontal assault" The Eichmann Polemics: Hannah Arendt and Her Critics
Democratiya 9
/ref> in an article in the ''

Partisan Review ''Partisan Review'' (''PR'') was a small-circulation quarterly "little magazine" dealing with literature, politics, and cultural commentary published in New York City. The magazine was launched in 1934 by the Communist Party USA–affiliated John ...

'', The subsequent responses and counter-responses occupied several subsequent issues. In early October 1963 Dissent Magazine organized a public event for detractors and supporters of Arendt's work to air their positions; it was moderated by

Irving Howe Irving Howe (; June 11, 1920 – May 5, 1993) was an American literary and social critic and a prominent figure of the Democratic Socialists of America. Early years Howe was born as Irving Horenstein in The Bronx, New York. He was the son o ...

and attended by a packed audience of "more than 300 people" at the Woodstock Hotel in New York City. Abel was invited to participate and accepted; Arendt herself did not attend. The event quickly veered away from calm discussion and was marked by frequent interruptions. Later accounts described it variously as "passionate and exciting", "unruly", or as "ugly and outrageous, yet also urgent and afire." Attendees who expressed support of Arendt's work claimed they were "shouted down" and prevented from speaking. Holocaust historian

Raul Hilberg Raul Hilberg (June 2, 1926 – August 4, 2007) was a Jewish Austrian-born American political scientist and historian. He was widely considered to be the preeminent scholar on the Holocaust. Christopher R. Browning has called him the founding fath ...

, who attended as a speaker, complained, "I was not allowed to finish. A panelist ionel Abelpounded on the table with his fist. His banging, magnified by the microphone, was followed by a cascade of boos," and that the rest of the event consisted of audience responses in which individuals berated and disparaged the participants speaking in support of Arendt. In a 1995 response letter to an article concerning Arendt by

Tony Judt Tony Robert Judt ( ; 2 January 1948 – 6 August 2010) was a British-American historian, essayist and university professor who specialized in European history. Judt moved to New York and served as the Erich Maria Remarque Professor in European ...

, both published in the NYRB, Abel expressed regret for having participated in the event, stating that "It was not proper to address complex ideas as the ''Dissent'' meeting tried to do. " Letter to NYRB, May 11th 1995 Issue
/ref>

Awards

Abel received a

Guggenheim fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

in 1958, a Longview award in 1960, an award from the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1964, and a Rockefeller Foundation grant in 1966. His play "Absalom" won an Obie award as the best play of the 1956 Off-Broadway season and a ''Show business'' award.

Works

Dramas

* "The Death of Odysseus" (New York, Amato Theatre, 1953) * "Absalom" (New York, Artist's Theatre, 1956) * "The Pretender" (New York, Cherry Lane Theatre, 1960) * "The Wives" (New York, 1960)

Criticism

* ''Metatheatre; a new view of dramatic form'' (1963) * ''Our first serious fascist?'' (1980) * ''The Intellectual Follies: A Memoir of the Literary Venture in New York and Paris'' (1984) * ''Sidney Hook's career: (the philosopher in politics)'' (1985) * ''Important Nonsense'' (1987) * ''Tragedy and Metatheatre: Essays on Dramatic Form'' (2003)

Anthology

* ''Moderns on Tragedy: An Anthology of Modern and Relevant Opinions on the Substance and Meaning of Tragedy'' (1967)

Translations

* ''Camille Pissarro: Letters to His Son Lucien''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abel, Lionel 1910 births 2001 deaths 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights American male dramatists and playwrights Writers from Brooklyn Columbia University faculty Rutgers University faculty Pratt Institute faculty University at Buffalo faculty 20th-century American male writers