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{{short description|American dramatist}}
{{refimprove|date=July 2011}}

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'''Lionel Abel''' (1910- 19 April 2001, in [[Manhattan]], New York) was an eminent Jewish American playwright, essayist and theater critic. His first success was a tragedy, ''Absalom'', staged [[off-Broadway]] in 1956 and winner of the [[Obie award]].<ref>{{cite news|last=Van Gelder|first=Lawrence|title=Lionel Abel, 90, Playwright and Essayist|url=http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30816FF3C5D0C768EDDAD0894D9404482|newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 25, 2001}}</ref> It was followed by three other works of drama, before he turned to criticism. He is best known for coining the term [[metatheatre]] in his book of the same title.
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1910|11|19}}
| birth_place = [[Brooklyn]], New York City, New York
| death_date = {{Death date and age|2001|04|19|1910|11|19}}
| death_place = [[Manhattan]], New York City, New York
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| occupation = Dramatist
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'''Lionel Abel''' (28 November 1910- 19 April 2001, in [[Manhattan]], New York)<ref name="e">Reisman, Rosemary M. Canfield. "Lionel Abel." ''Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia'' (2013): ''Research Starters''. Web. 11 July 2014.</ref> was an eminent Jewish American<ref name="Young-Bruehl2004">{{cite book|author=Elisabeth Young-Bruehl|title=Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WVaRUV7jOzUC&pg=PA360|year=2004|publisher=Yale University Press|isbn=0-300-10588-6|pages=360}}</ref> [[playwright]], [[essayist]] and [[theater critic]]. He was also a translator, and was an authorized translator of [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], who called Abel the most intelligent man in New York City.

⚫
His first success was a tragedy, ''Absalom'', staged [[off-Broadway]] in 1956 and winner of the [[Obie award]].<ref name="new">{{cite news|last=Van Gelder|first=Lawrence|title=Lionel Abel, 90, Playwright and Essayist|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/04/25/arts/lionel-abel-90-playwright-and-essayist.html|newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 25, 2001}}</ref> It was followed by three other works of drama, before he turned to criticism. He is best known for coining the term [[metatheatre]] in his book of the same title.<ref name="Abel2003">{{cite book|author=Lionel Abel|title=Tragedy and metatheatre: essays on dramatic form|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KW2FAAAAIAAJ|year=2003|publisher=Holmes & Meier|isbn=978-0-8419-1352-3}}</ref>

He was one of the signers of the [[Humanist Manifesto II]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.americanhumanist.org/Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_II |title=Humanist Manifesto II |publisher=American Humanist Association |accessdate=October 4, 2012 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20121020110719/http://www.americanhumanist.org/humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_II |archivedate=October 20, 2012 }}</ref>

==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]] (1921–2017) was a professor emeritus of philosophy at [[New York University]]; 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 (New York City)|St. John’s University]] in New York from 1926 to 1928, and then transferred to the [[University of North Carolina]],<ref name="e" /> which he attended from 1928 to 1929.<ref name="abel">''Lionel Abel''. n.p.: Gale, 2001. ''Literature Resource Center''. Web. 11 July 2014.</ref> 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==
==Career==
Abel never attended college, but was offered a professor position at the [[State University of New York at Buffalo]] because of his writings. After teaching appointments at [[Columbia University|Columbia]] and [[Rutgers]] Universities and at the [[Pratt Institute]], he concluded his academic career in the English Department of the [[University at Buffalo]], before retiring to New York City.
Despite never obtaining a college degree, he was offered a professor position at the [[State University of New York at Buffalo]] because of his writings.<ref name="new" /> After teaching appointments at [[Columbia University|Columbia]] and [[Rutgers]] Universities and at the [[Pratt Institute]], he concluded his academic career in the English Department of the [[University at Buffalo]], before retiring to New York City.


He is also the author of several important translations from the French, including texts by [[André Breton]] and [[Guillaume Apollinaire]]. 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]], [[Meyer Schapiro]], [[Clement Greenberg]], [[Robert Lowell]], [[Randall Jarrell]], [[Lionel Trilling]], [[James Agee]], [[Mary McCarthy (author)|Mary McCarthy]], [[Hannah Arendt]], [[Leslie Fiedler]] and [[Elizabeth Hardwick (writer)|Elizabeth Hardwick]].
He is also the author of several important translations from the French, including texts by [[André Breton]] and [[Guillaume Apollinaire]]. 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]], [[Meyer Schapiro]], [[Clement Greenberg]], [[Robert Lowell]], [[Randall Jarrell]], [[Lionel Trilling]], [[James Agee]], [[Mary McCarthy (author)|Mary McCarthy]], [[Hannah Arendt]], [[Leslie Fiedler]] and [[Elizabeth Hardwick (writer)|Elizabeth Hardwick]].


==Criticism of Hannah Arendt==
==Personal life==

Born in Brooklyn, Abel was the son of Alter Abelson, a rabbi and poet, and of Anna Schwartz Abelson, a writer of short stories. [[Jean-Paul Sartre]] called Abel the most intelligent man in New York City. He was one of the signers of the [[Humanist Manifesto II|Humanist Manifesto]].<ref>{{cite web | url= http://www.americanhumanist.org/Humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_II | title=Humanist Manifesto II | publisher=American Humanist Association | accessdate=October 4, 2012}}</ref>
Abel participated in the heated debate that followed the publication of [[Hannah Arendt|Arendt's]] ''[[Eichmann in Jerusalem]]''. He criticized the work in "an outright frontal assault" <ref name="Democratiya 9">The Eichmann Polemics: Hannah Arendt and Her Critics, [http://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya_article/the-eichmann-polemics-hannah-arendt-and-her-critics Democratiya 9]</ref> in an article
in the ''[[Partisan Review]]'',<ref>Partisan Review, Summer 1963 Issue.</ref> The subsequent responses and counter-responses occupied several subsequent issues. In early October 1963 [[Dissent (American magazine)|Dissent Magazine]] organized a public event for detractors and supporters of Arendt's work to air their positions; it was moderated by [[Irving Howe]] and attended by a packed audience of "more than 300 people" at the Woodstock Hotel in New York City.<ref>Richard M. Cook, ''Alfred Kazin: A Biography'' (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 321.</ref> 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]], who attended as a speaker, complained, "I was not allowed to finish. A panelist [Lionel Abel] pounded 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.<ref name="Democratiya 9"/>

In a 1995 response letter to an article concerning Arendt by [[Tony Judt]], both published in the [[The New York Review of Books|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. " <ref>[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1995/may/11/eichmann-in-jerusalem/ Letter to NYRB, May 11th 1995 Issue ]</ref>

==Awards==

Abel received a [[Guggenheim fellowship]] 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==
==Works==


===Dramas===
===Dramas===
⚫
* "Absalom" (New York, Artist's Theatre, 1956)
* "The Death of Odysseus" (New York, Amato Theatre, 1953)
* "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 Pretender" (New York, Cherry Lane Theatre, 1960)
* "The Wives" (New York, 1960)
* "The Wives" (New York, 1960)
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* ''Sidney Hook's career: (the philosopher in politics)'' (1985)
* ''Sidney Hook's career: (the philosopher in politics)'' (1985)
* ''Important Nonsense'' (1987)
* ''Important Nonsense'' (1987)
* ''Tragedy and Metatheatre: Essays on Dramatuc Form'' (2003)
* ''Tragedy and Metatheatre: Essays on Dramatic Form'' (2003)


===Anthology===
===Anthology===
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{{Reflist}}
{{Reflist}}


{{Authority control|VIAF=52597102}}
{{Authority control}}


{{Persondata
⚫
| NAME = Abel, Lionel
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES =
| SHORT DESCRIPTION = Playwright
| DATE OF BIRTH = 1910
| PLACE OF BIRTH = Brooklyn
| DATE OF DEATH = 2001
| PLACE OF DEATH =
⚫
}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abel, Lionel}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Abel, Lionel}}
[[Category:1910 births]]
[[Category:1910 births]]
[[Category:2001 deaths]]
[[Category:2001 deaths]]
[[Category:American dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:American male dramatists and playwrights]]
[[Category:Writers from Brooklyn]]
[[Category:Writers from Brooklyn]]
[[Category:Columbia University faculty]]
[[Category:Columbia University faculty]]
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[[Category:Pratt Institute faculty]]
[[Category:Pratt Institute faculty]]
[[Category:University at Buffalo faculty]]
[[Category:University at Buffalo faculty]]
[[Category:Guggenheim Fellows]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]

Latest revision as of 17:10, 25 March 2024

Lionel Abel
Born(1910-11-19)November 19, 1910
Brooklyn, New York City, New York
DiedApril 19, 2001(2001-04-19) (aged 90)
Manhattan, New York City, New York
OccupationDramatist
Notable worksMetatheater

Lionel Abel (28 November 1910- 19 April 2001, in Manhattan, New York)[1] was an eminent Jewish American[2] playwright, essayist and theater critic. He was also a translator, and was an authorized translator of Jean-Paul Sartre, who called Abel the most intelligent man in New York City.

His first success was a tragedy, Absalom, staged off-Broadway in 1956 and winner of the Obie award.[3] It was followed by three other works of drama, before he turned to criticism. He is best known for coining the term metatheatre in his book of the same title.[4]

He was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto II.[5]

Biography[edit]

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 (1921–2017) was a professor emeritus of philosophy at New York University; 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,[1] which he attended from 1928 to 1929.[6] 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[edit]

Despite never obtaining a college degree, he was offered a professor position at the State University of New York at Buffalo because of his writings.[3] After teaching appointments at Columbia and Rutgers Universities and at the Pratt Institute, he concluded his academic career in the English Department of the University at Buffalo, before retiring to New York City.

He is also the author of several important translations from the French, including texts by André Breton and Guillaume Apollinaire. 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, Meyer Schapiro, Clement Greenberg, Robert Lowell, Randall Jarrell, Lionel Trilling, James Agee, Mary McCarthy, Hannah Arendt, Leslie Fiedler and Elizabeth Hardwick.

Criticism of Hannah Arendt[edit]

Abel participated in the heated debate that followed the publication of Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem. He criticized the work in "an outright frontal assault" [7] in an article in the Partisan Review,[8] 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 and attended by a packed audience of "more than 300 people" at the Woodstock Hotel in New York City.[9] 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, who attended as a speaker, complained, "I was not allowed to finish. A panelist [Lionel Abel] pounded 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.[7]

In a 1995 response letter to an article concerning Arendt by Tony Judt, 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. " [10]

Awards[edit]

Abel received a Guggenheim fellowship 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[edit]

Dramas[edit]

  • "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[edit]

  • 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[edit]

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

Translations[edit]

  • Camille Pissarro: Letters to His Son Lucien

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b Reisman, Rosemary M. Canfield. "Lionel Abel." Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia (2013): Research Starters. Web. 11 July 2014.
  2. ^ Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (2004). Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World. Yale University Press. p. 360. ISBN 0-300-10588-6.
  3. ^ a b Van Gelder, Lawrence (April 25, 2001). "Lionel Abel, 90, Playwright and Essayist". The New York Times.
  4. ^ Lionel Abel (2003). Tragedy and metatheatre: essays on dramatic form. Holmes & Meier. ISBN 978-0-8419-1352-3.
  5. ^ "Humanist Manifesto II". American Humanist Association. Archived from the original on October 20, 2012. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  6. ^ Lionel Abel. n.p.: Gale, 2001. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 July 2014.
  7. ^ a b The Eichmann Polemics: Hannah Arendt and Her Critics, Democratiya 9
  8. ^ Partisan Review, Summer 1963 Issue.
  9. ^ Richard M. Cook, Alfred Kazin: A Biography (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 321.
  10. ^ Letter to NYRB, May 11th 1995 Issue
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