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1 - Re-thinking Synge

from Part 1 - The Synge Texts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2010

P. J. Mathews
Affiliation:
University College Dublin
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Summary

John Millington Synge, widely regarded as the most influential Irish dramatist of the twentieth century, burst on to the scene in 1903 when his first play, The Shadow of the Glen, caused a stir among audiences and critics alike during its opening run in Dublin. Over the next two years Synge produced another two plays: Riders to the Sea (1904), which is considered to be one of the greatest one-act plays in the history of modern drama; and The Well of the Saints (1905) which celebrates the imagination and heroism of the dissident who refuses to be coerced into conformity at the behest of the moral majority. Synge may well have drawn on the lessons of the latter play when, in 1907, he became notorious as the author of The Playboy of the Western World, which caused riots in the Abbey Theatre and brought his work to the attention of the wider world for the first time. Two other plays, The Tinker's Wedding written in 1907 and Deirdre of the Sorrows staged posthumously in 1910, complete the canon of Synge's plays. Yet before his early death in 1909 he also left a small body of prose of considerable significance which includes The Aran Islands (1907) and an extraordinarily rich compendium of travel essays, now collected under the title In Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara (CW II, 187-343), as well as a robust collection of poetry (1909). Despite the relatively small corpus of work he left behind, Synge's stature has continued to grow steadily among audiences, readers and critics since his early death over a century ago.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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  • Re-thinking Synge
  • Edited by P. J. Mathews, University College Dublin
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to J. M. Synge
  • Online publication: 28 March 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521110105.001
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  • Re-thinking Synge
  • Edited by P. J. Mathews, University College Dublin
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to J. M. Synge
  • Online publication: 28 March 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521110105.001
Available formats
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Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Re-thinking Synge
  • Edited by P. J. Mathews, University College Dublin
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to J. M. Synge
  • Online publication: 28 March 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL9780521110105.001
Available formats
×