SOURCE: Ballet, Arthur H. “Our Town as a Classical Tragedy.” In Readings on Our Town, edited by Thomas Siebold, pp. 74-82. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2000.

In the following essay, originally published in 1956, Ballet asserts that Our Town is a “modern American Tragedy,” following a tradition that stretches back to Sophocles' Oedipus Rex.

In the short history of American literary criticism, there has been a continuous search for “the great American drama.” It is the purpose of this essay to continue this search by exploring the qualifications for this signal honor of Thornton Wilder's Our Town. It is hoped that, since Our Town continues to be widely read and performed in educational and professional theatre, new light may yet be shed. … Either educators, directors, and the general theatre-going public have been deceived by the play, or they must come to terms intelligently with it if they are to continue...