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Further Exploration

“I get attacks of quotitis every once in a while. It’s a very rare disease with no cure. It usually attacks older people, and here I am afflicted with it at my tender age.” L’Engle uses lots of quotes, allusions, and references in The Joys of Love. Extend your study by reading, or watching, some of the plays she mentions.

  • Henrik Ibsen’s “The Master Builder”
  • Dodie Smith’s “Autumn Crocus”
  • John William Van Druten’s “The Voice of the Turtle”
  • Hermann Sudermann’s “Magda”
  • Jean Cocteau’s “The Infernal Machine”
  • Tennessee Williams’s “A Streetcar Named Desire”
  • William Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet,” “Macbeth,” “As You Like It,” “The Merchant of Venice,” “Twelfth Night,” “Hamlet” (including a speech about good acting (p.96-97)
  • Anton Chekhov’s “The Seagull” (including Nina’s speech to Constantine which parallels Elizabeth’s experience p.85)
  • Eugene O’Neill’s “Mourning Becomes Electra”
  • George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion”
  • Honoré de Balzac’s Short Stories
  • A.C. Bradley’s Shakespearean Tragedies
  • Christopher Marlowe’s “Edward II”
  • William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence”

Musical References