SOURCE: Adler, Thomas P. “The Political Animal.” In Mirror on the Stage: The Pulitzer Plays as an Approach to American Drama, pp. 85-95. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1987.

In the following excerpt, Adler analyzes the treatment of American politics in a group of Pulitzer Prize-winning plays, concluding that their authors' lack of inventiveness in dramatic technique reflects their acceptance of the political status quo.

In his history plays, Shakespeare attempts to define the qualities of the good king, proposing a relationship between the health of the body politic and the moral nature of its rulers. This link was not original with the Renaissance; anthropological studies reveal that ancient societies knew “the king must die” so that the wasteland could be made fertile. Shakespeare's perspective is further characterized, however, by the suspicion he casts upon the ability of the ruler to maintain his personal integrity when it inevitably...