What' the origin of "what price glory/fame" meaning:
- to suggest that glory/fame may not be worth what a person has to lose or give up in order to get it. (M-W)
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nGrams seems to suggest the phrase "price of glory" is as old as the hills.– KrisCommented Jun 15, 2018 at 7:53
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1 Answer
Although the expression has the succinctness of a Latin aphorism, the exact collocation of what price glory? does not occur in English until the play by that name hit Broadway in 1924. Authored by Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings, the play was noted for its realistic depiction of the Great War and condemned for its profanity, though mild by today’s standards. It won a Pulitzer for best drama and enabled Maxwell to embark on his long career as a professional playwright. A silent film followed in 1926 and one in Technicolor in 1953 starring James Cagney.
The title of the play set up a pattern which could employ other nouns:
What Price Victory? No one can estimate the stupendous cost of Hitler's victory even though it should take the form of a quickly negotiated peace. Already the destruction of the war surpasses that of any other war in human history. — Maxwell Droke, What Next America? A Guide Book for the Average Citizen in These Troubled Times, 1940.
The expression reverberated in the following decades. The play is still performed.
What price glory?
Pretty dad-gummed high if you ask the parents of some of the Pewitt Brahma foorball players last fall. — Naples Monitor_ (TX), 20 Feb. 1964.…because in some abstruse way the insects’ luminous material is valuable in research to help study life In outer space. There still must be kids who catch fireflies in bottles, just to watch their fascinating ... or should we say illuminating . . . performance. Now there’s money in it as well. What price glory! All we can say to the firefly is: Go, little glow-worm, go, go, go! — Coranado Eagle and Journal (CA), 26 Aug. 1965.
The teachers’ contract may help the mayor win re-election, but what price glory? If he wins, he’s going to have to figure out how to pay for that contract and the reverberations it will produce in other unions … — Bronxville Review Press And Reporter (NY), 3 July 1969.
What price glory?
Mind you, the Templeton game plan is not infallible. Bob Templeton is the Queensland coach and was the Australian coach when the Wallabies played France in Paris last season. — Canberra Times (ACT), 6 July 1977.
