http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/11/11/on-norman-corwin-poet-laureate-of-american-radio/ Responses to Media and Culture Fri, 12 Feb 2016 19:35:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.7.5 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/11/11/on-norman-corwin-poet-laureate-of-american-radio/comment-page-1/#comment-132315 Mon, 14 Nov 2011 04:58:11 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=11276#comment-132315 Thanks for the mention, Michele! I’m delighted to hear that you’ve been teaching these plays. Even when they’re vastly embarrassing, they have a kind of richness. I agree completely with your thoughts above on why Corwin sounds so alien to us today, and with your praise for the American in England series. I’ve been rereading notes from my interviews with Norman since he passed. At one point he said that he thought the “Cromer” episode was one of his best works ever. Also that the This is War series (surely the “hottest”) were the worst. That sounds about right to me.
Best, nv

]]> http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/2011/11/11/on-norman-corwin-poet-laureate-of-american-radio/comment-page-1/#comment-131610 Fri, 11 Nov 2011 23:57:25 +0000 http://blog.commarts.wisc.edu/?p=11276#comment-131610 Thanks, Michele, for pointing this out. I just played a snippet of “We Hold These Truths” for a course on American Culture in the 1930s-40s. I must confess, with some shame, that I used it as an example of didactic radio propaganda in contrast to propaganda integrated into entertainment (as in the Gracie Allen bit in the NBC Mileage Rationing Special). My students preferred their war propaganda couched in comedy, of course. So your point that Corwin’s legacy is partly obscured because of that association with bombastic war propaganda is well taken! I plead guilty to perpetuating it–though I did tell my students that I was being unfair to Corwin by using that as the only example of his work!

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