Introduction

After his death in December 1986, Francis Fergusson was identified in certain obituaries merely as a professor and literary critic, which is like identifying Thomas Jefferson merely as a gentleman farmer. In the introduction to The Idea of a Theater, Francis compared the Elizabethan theater, "which had been formed at the center of the culture of its time", with the modern period, in which "human nature seems to us a hopelessly elusive and uncandid entity", creating virtually impossible conditions for the contemporary playwright. The artist in Francis Fergusson continued to predominate over the lecturer. By moving from biology to theater, Francis had tried in one sense to deny the truth he recognized in the insight of the mathematician Buchanan concerning modern society. Francis's work on the projected portrait of Oppenheimer came to an end, gradually but inevitably, as Parkinson's disease invaded his body.