ABSTRACT
Robert E. Sherwood fluctuated between optimism and pessimism in domestic and foreign affairs as he was working on Acropolis. Nineteen thirty-three marked the final year of the period Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. has referred to as “the crisis of the old order”. Yet in most respects the Alcibiades of Acropolis is recognizably the young Alcibiades of the ancient world, in his youth closely associated with Socrates. Alcibiades’ initial status as the One arises partly through his close relationship with the Parthenon. The link between the flesh-and-blood idol of Athens and his marble counterpart will continue through the play—though Alcibiades’ role will diminish as others don the mantle of protagonist. In 1933, Franklin Delano Roosevelt entered office as president of the United States, and Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany. While composing Acropolis, Sherwood first read and was deeply disturbed by Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which had recently been published in translation in England and America.
