Lilith (play)
| Lilith: A Dramatic Poem | |
|---|---|
Title page of 300-copy 1919 first edition of Lilith | |
| Written by | George Sterling |
| Music by | Lawrence Zenda (pseudonym of Mrs. Rosaliene Reed Travis), Sara Opal Heron Search, John H. Densmore |
| Lyrics by | George Sterling |
| Characters | Men-at-arms, man-at-arms Leal, serving woman Berthe, troubadour, King Urlan, Prince Tancred, Lilith, Gavain, knight, wizard, Count Lurion, boy Ulf, shepherd Geoffrey, Amara, maidens, youths, cook, Odo the fool, Raoul the troubadour, Jehanne, King Gerbert, harpers, Archbishop Arnulph, Chancellor Foulques, lords, ladies |
| Original language | English |
| Genre | Drama, fantasy |
| Setting | courtyard of a medieval castle in France; a garden-close of the castle; burial crypt of the castle; a white winding road ascending grassy hills; a mountain lake with a huge castle; a road leading to snow-capped mountains; a mountain stream and woods near a home; battlements of a castle; a banquet hall; a locked tower room; a fountain near a castle’s garden-close |
Lilith: A Dramatic Poem is an acclaimed four-act fantasy verse drama written in blank verse by American poet and playwright George Sterling from 1904 to 1918, and first published in 1919. The New York Times declared Lilith “the finest thing in poetic drama yet done in America and one of the finest poetic dramas yet written in English.”
Author Theodore Dreiser said of Lilith: “It rings richer in thought than any American dramatic poem with which I am familiar.” Poet Clark Ashton Smith wrote: “Lilith is certainly the best dramatic poem in English since the days of Swinburne and Browning. … The lyrics interspersed throughout the drama are as beautiful as any by the Elizabethans.” Influential critic H. L. Mencken said of Sterling: “I think his dramatic poem Lilith was the greatest thing he ever wrote.” Thirty-four years later, in his book George Sterling, Thomas E. Benediktsson, agreed: “The allegorical Lilith is undoubtedly Sterling’s best poem.”