Arthur Asher Miller (1915 –
2005) was a prolific American playwright, essayist, and prominent figure in
twentieth-century American theatre. Among his most popular plays are All My Sons (1947), Death of a Salesman (1949), The
Crucible (1953) and A View from the
Bridge (1955). He also wrote several screenplays and was most noted for his
work on The Misfits (1961). The drama
Death of a Salesman is often numbered
on the short list of finest American plays in the 20th century alongside Long Day's Journey into Night and A Streetcar Named Desire.
Miller was often in the
public eye, particularly during the late 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s. During
this time, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; testified before the
House Un-American Activities Committee; and was married to Marilyn Monroe. He
received the Prince of Asturias Award and the Praemium Imperiale prize in 2002
and the Jerusalem Prize in 2003, as well as the Dorothy and Lillian Gish
Lifetime Achievement Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
Arthur Asher Miller was
born on October 17, 1915, in Harlem, in the New York City borough of Manhattan,
the second of three children of Augusta (Barnett) and Isidore Miller. His
father was born in Poland, and his mother was a native of New York whose
parents also arrived from that country. Isidore owned a women's clothing
manufacturing business employing 400 people. He became a wealthy and respected
man in the community. The family, including his younger sister Joan, lived on
West 110th Street in Manhattan, owned a summer house in Far Rockaway, Queens,
and employed a chauffeur. In the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the family lost
almost everything and moved to Gravesend, Brooklyn. As a teenager, Miller
delivered bread every morning before school to help the family. After
graduating in 1932 from Abraham Lincoln High School, he worked at several
menial jobs to pay for his college tuition.
At the University of
Michigan, Miller first majored in journalism and worked for the student paper,
the Michigan Daily. It was during this time that he wrote his first play, No Villain.
Miller switched his major to English, and subsequently won the Avery Hopwood
Award for No Villain. The award brought him his first recognition and led him
to begin to consider that he could have a career as a playwright. Miller
enrolled in a playwriting seminar taught by the influential Professor Kenneth
Rowe, who instructed him in his early forays
into playwriting; Rowe emphasized how a play is built in order to achieve its
intended effect, or what Miller called "the dynamics of play
construction". Rowe provided realistic feedback along with much-needed
encouragement, and became a lifelong friend. Miller retained strong ties to his
alma mater throughout the rest of
his life, establishing the university's Arthur Miller Award in 1985 and Arthur
Miller Award for Dramatic Writing in 1999, and lending his name to the Arthur
Miller Theatre in 2000. In 1937, Miller wrote Honors at Dawn, which also received the Avery Hopwood Award. After
his graduation in 1938, he joined the Federal Theater Project, a New Deal
agency established to provide jobs in the theater. He chose the theater project
despite the more lucrative offer to work as a scriptwriter for 20th Century
Fox. However, Congress, worried about possible Communist infiltration, closed
the project in 1939. Miller began working in the Brooklyn Navy Yard while
continuing to write radio plays, some of which were broadcast on CBS.
Vocabulary
Foray: A venture or an
initial attempt, especially outside one's usual area: an actor's foray into
politics.
Alma
mater: The school, college, or university that one has attended.
Related article
References
Learn English with us. If
you are between 0 and 100 years old you are invited to join us. Leave your
messages and we´ll be glad to respond. Our telephone: 4249159
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario
Deja aquí tus mensajes, comentarios o críticas. Serán bienvenidos