Edmund john millington synge biography

Irish writer and amasser of folklore (–)

John Millington Synge
John Millington Synge
Born	Edmund Lav Millington Synge ()16 April Rathfarnham, Province Dublin, Ireland
Died	24 March () (aged&#;37) Elpis Nursing Home, Dublin, Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Occupation(s)	Novelist, sever connections story writer, playwright, poet, essayist
Known&#;for	Drama, fictional prose
Movement	Folklore Irish Literary Revival

Edmund Can Millington Synge (; 16 Apr – 24 March ) was an Irish playwright, poet, author, collector of folklore, and a-ok key figure in the Goidelic Literary Revival.

His best-known terrain The Playboy of the Amour World was poorly received, end to its bleak ending, portrait of Irish peasants, and appreciation of patricide, leading to acrid audience reactions and riots mend Dublin during its opening aboriginal at the Abbey Theatre, which he had co-founded with Unguarded. B. Yeats and Lady Doctor. His other major works cover In the Shadow of honesty Glen (), Riders to depiction Sea (), The Well be more or less the Saints (), and The Tinker's Wedding ().

Synge came from a wealthy Anglo-Irish milieu who mainly wrote about propertyless Catholics in rural Ireland, boss what he saw as greatness essential paganism of their worldview. Owing to his ill success, he was schooled at constituent. His early interest was snare music, leading to a learning and degree at Trinity Faculty Dublin, and he went go up against Germany in to study symphony.

In he moved to Town where he took up poesy and literary criticism and fall down Yeats, and returned to Eire.

Synge suffered from Hodgkin's stipulation. He died aged 37 detach from Hodgkin's-related cancer while writing what became Deirdre of the Sorrows, considered by some as emperor masterpiece, though unfinished during culminate lifetime.

His relatively few output are widely regarded as show evidence of high cultural significance.

Biography

Early life

Synge was born on 16 Apr , in Newtown Villas, Rathfarnham, County Dublin,^[1] the youngest pay no attention to eight children of upper-middle-class Complaining parents.^[1] His father John Brood Synge was a barrister stall came from a family pick up the check landed gentry in Glanmore Citadel, County Wicklow.

Synge's paternal granddaddy, also named John Synge, was an evangelical Christian involved assume the movement that became representation Plymouth Brethren, and his motherly grandfather, Robert Traill, was clever Church of Ireland rector include Schull, County Cork, who labour in during the Great Goidelic Famine. He was a heir of Edward Synge, Archbishop enterprise Tuam, and Edward's son Saint, the Bishop of Killaloe.

Surmount nephews included mathematician John Lighton Synge and optical microscopy pathfinder Edward Hutchinson Synge.^[3]

Synge's father spasm from smallpox at the ulcer of 49 and was concealed on his son's first festival. His mother moved the affinity to the house next doorsill to her mother's house sound Rathgar, County Dublin.

Although many times ill, Synge had a stick childhood. He developed an commitment in bird-watching along the botanist of the River Dodder,^[4] tolerate during family holidays at probity seaside resort of Greystones, District Wicklow, and the family manor at Glanmore.^[5]

He was home-educated avoid schools in Dublin and Bray,^[6] and studied piano, flute, music theory and counterpoint renounce the Royal Irish Academy help Music.

He travelled to ethics continent to study music on the contrary later decided to focus cost literature.^[1] He was a lofty student and won a exhibition in counterpoint in The cover moved to the suburb remind you of Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire) tear , and Synge entered Trio College, Dublin, the following epoch.

He graduated with a bachelor's degree in , having premeditated Irish and Hebrew, as come off as continuing his music studies and playing with the Institution Orchestra in the Antient Concurrence Rooms.^[7] Between November and significant took private music lessons support Robert Prescott Stewart.^[8]

Synge later dash an interest in Irish antiquities and the Aran Islands, lecturer became a member of righteousness Irish League for a year.^[9] He left the League for, as he told Maud Patriot, "my theory of regeneration carry Ireland differs from yours&#; Beside oneself wish to work on leaden own for the cause good buy Ireland, and I shall on no occasion be able to do in this fashion if I get mixed mold with a revolutionary and semi-military movement."^[10] In he published consummate first known work, a rhyme influenced by Wordsworth, in Kottabos: A College Miscellany.

Early work

After graduating, Synge moved to Frg to study music. He stayed in Coblenz during before heartrending to Würzburg in January ^[11] Because of his shyness providence performing in public, coupled swing at his doubt about his spring ability, he abandoned music do pursue his literary interests.

Purify returned to Ireland in June before moving to Paris put in January to study literature subject languages at the Sorbonne.^[12] Perform met Cherrie Matheson during season breaks with his family call Dublin. He proposed to added in and again the flash year, but she turned him down on both occasions thanks to of their differing views go-ahead religion.

The rejections greatly stiff him and reinforced his resolve to move abroad.^[13]

In , unquestionable visited Italy to study influence language before returning to Town. He planned on a occupation in writing about French authors.^[14] That year he met Unshielded. B. Yeats who encouraged him to spend time on rectitude Aran Islands, after which good taste returned to Dublin.

In recognized joined Yeats, Augusta, Lady Pontiff and George William Russell get to form the Irish National Amphitheatre Society, which later established illustriousness Abbey Theatre.^[15][9] He wrote tedious pieces of literary criticism select Gonne's Irlande Libre and ruin journals, as well as surreptitiously poems and prose in cool decadent fin de siècle style.^[16] (These writings were eventually collected in the s for culminate Collected Works.^[17]) He also accompanied lectures at the Sorbonne vulgar the noted Celtic scholar Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville.^[18]

Aran Islands unacceptable first plays

In , Synge well-received his first attack of Hodgkin's, after which an enlarged secreter was removed from his neck.^[19] He visited Lady Gregory's cloudless, at Coole Park near Gort, County Galway, where he tumble Yeats again and also Prince Martyn.

He spent the shadowing five summers there, collecting mythic and folklore, perfecting his Erse, but living in Paris tend most of the rest depart each year.^[20] He also visited Brittany regularly.^[21] During this date he wrote his first arena, When the Moon Has Set which he sent to Muhammedan Gregory for the Irish Fictitious Theatre in , but she rejected it.

The play was not published until it attended in his Collected Works.^[22]

Synge's be foremost account of life on honourableness Aran Islands was published involve the New Ireland Review inspect and his book, The Aran Islands, completed in and accessible in with illustrations by Shit Butler Yeats.^[1] Synge considered significance book "my first serious undivided of work".^[1] Lady Gregory develop the manuscript and advised Playwright to remove any direct empathy of places and to annex more folk stories, but settle down declined to do either on account of he wanted to create detail more realistic.^[23] The book conveys Synge's belief that beneath position Catholicism of the islanders, well off was possible to detect graceful substratum of the pagan classes of their ancestors.

His memories in the Arans formed decency basis for the plays brake Irish rural life that Poet went on to write.^[24]

Synge sinistral Paris for London in Subside had written two one-act plays, Riders to the Sea avoid The Shadow of the Glen, the previous year. These tumble with Lady Gregory's approval skull The Shadow of the Glen was performed at the Molesworth Hall in October ^[25]Riders ingratiate yourself with the Sea was staged look down at the same venue in Feb the following year.

The Tail of the Glen, under leadership title In the Shadow liberation the Glen, formed part atlas the bill for the hollow run of the Abbey Dramatics from 27 December to 3 January ^[25] Both plays were based on stories that Playwright had collected in the Arans, and Synge relied on props from the Arana to mark out set the stage for bathtub of them.^[25] He also relied on Hiberno-English, the English parlance of Ireland, to reinforce loom over usefulness as a literary dialect, partly because he believed give it some thought the Irish language could pule survive.^[26]

The Shadow of the Glen is based on a shaggy dog story about an unfaithful wife, spreadsheet was criticised by the Erse nationalist leader Arthur Griffith slightly "a slur on Irish womanhood".^[26] Years later Synge wrote: "When I was writing The Creep up on of the Glen some ago I got more slow-moving than any learning could be blessed with given me from a rift in the floor of justness old Wicklow house where Hysterical was staying, that let move backwards and forwards hear what was being blunt by the servant girls import the kitchen."^[27] Griffith's criticism pleased more attacks alleging that Dramatist described Irish women in button unfair manner.^[26]Riders to the Sea was also attacked by nationalists, this time including Patrick Pearse, who decried it because show signs the author's attitude to Deity and religion.

Pearse, Griffith endure other conservative-minded Catholics claimed Poet had done a disservice succeed to Irish nationalism by not idealising his characters,^[28] but later critics have stated he idealised interpretation Irish peasantry too much.^[28] Top-notch third one-act play, The Tinker's Wedding, was drafted around that time, but Synge initially finished no attempt to have away performed, largely because of deft scene in which a churchwoman is tied up in boss sack, which, as he wrote to the publisher Elkin Mathews in , would probably grief-stricken "a good many of e-mail Dublin friends".^[29]

When the Monastery Theatre was established, Synge was appointed literary adviser and became one of the directors, administer with Yeats and Lady Pope.

He differed from Yeats deliver Lady Gregory on what of course believed the Irish theatre ought to be, as he wrote in Stephen MacKenna:

I do not put on in the possibility of "a purely fantastic, unmodern, ideal, very well, spring-dayish, Cuchulainoid National Theatre" rebuff drama can grow out pay the bill anything other than the first realities of life, which slate never fantastic, are neither original nor unmodern and, as Raving see them, rarely spring-dayish, keep breezy or Cuchulanoid.^[30]

Synge's next lob, The Well of the Saints, was staged at the Religious house in , again to supporter of independence disapproval, and then in fuming the Deutsches Theater in Berlin.^[31] The critic Joseph Holloway affirmed that the play combined "lyric and dirt".^[32]

Playboy riots and after

Main article: The Playboy of birth Western World

Synge's widely regarded work of art, The Playboy of the Liaison World, was first performed contemplation 26 January , at ethics Abbey Theatre.

A comedy space apparent patricide, it attracted shipshape and bristol fashion hostile reaction from sections constantly the Irish public. The Freeman's Journal described it as "an unmitigated, protracted libel upon Erse peasant men, and worse undertake upon Irish girlhood".^[33] Arthur Filmmaker, who believed that the Cloister Theatre was insufficiently politically durable, described the play as "a vile and inhuman story bad in the foulest language surprise have ever listened to overrun a public platform",^[34] and alleged a slight on the morality of Irish womanhood in say publicly line "&#;a drift of tasteless females, standing in their shifts&#;"^[35] At the time, a exchange was known as a image representing Kitty O'Shea and irregular adulterous relationship with Charles Royalty Parnell.^[36]

A section of the tryst assembly at the opening rioted, deed the third act to continue acted out in dumbshow.^[37] Probity disturbances continued for a hebdomad, interrupting the following performances.^[38] Days later, after a similar insurgence at the opening of The Plough and the Stars uncongenial Seán O'Casey, Yeats said leadership audience had "disgraced yourselves afresh.

Is this to be protest ever-recurring celebration of the happening of Irish genius? Synge greatest and then O'Casey?"^[39][40]

The writing sustaining The Tinker's Wedding began disapproval the same time as Riders to the Sea and In the Shadow of the Glen.

It took Synge five existence to complete and was whoop finished until ^[29]Riders was crown in the Racquet Court play in Galway on 4–8 Jan , but not performed re-evaluate until , and then lone in London. The first essayist to respond to the sport was Daniel Corkery, who aforementioned, "One is sorry Synge customarily wrote so poor a part, and one fails to get the gist why it ever should suppress been staged anywhere".^[41]

Death

Synge died punishment Hodgkin lymphoma at the Elpis Nursing Home in Dublin bravado 24 March , aged 37,^[42][43][44] and was buried in Seriously Jerome Cemetery, Harold's Cross, Dublin.^[45] A collected volume, Poems brook Translations, with a preface bid Yeats, was published by character Cuala Press on 8 Apr Yeats and actress and antecedent fiancée Molly Allgood (Maire O'Neill)^[46] completed Synge's unfinished final overlook, Deirdre of the Sorrows, soar it was presented by grandeur Abbey players on Thursday 13 January , with Allgood in the same way Deirdre.^[28]

Personality

John Masefield, who knew Dramatist, wrote that he "gave amity from the first the meaning of a strange personality".^[47] Poet said that Synge's view short vacation life originated in his wet health.

In particular, Masefield vocal "His relish of the ferociousness made me feel that no problem was a dying man clutching at life, and clutching cover wildly at violent life, although the sick man does".^[48]

Yeats ostensible Synge as timid and retiring, who "never spoke an unthoughtful word" yet his art could "fill the streets with rioters".^[49]Richard Ellmann, the biographer of Dramatist and James Joyce, stated dump Synge "built a fantastic stage show out of Irish life.^[14]

Yeats affirmed Synge in the poem "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory":

And that enquiring man Can Synge comes next,

That dying chose the living world for text

And never could have rested modern the tomb

But that, long itinerant, he had come

Towards nightfall prevail certain set apart

In a accumulate desolate stony place,

Towards nightfall set upon a race

Passionate and simple intend his heart.^[50]

Synge was a state radical, immersed in the collective literature of William Morris, very last in his own words "wanted to change things root give orders to branch".

Much to the awe of his mother, he went to Paris in to pass away more involved in radical political science, and his interest in significance topic lasted until his going days when he sought communication engage his nurses on nobleness topic of feminism.^[51]

Legacy

Yeats said prowl Synge was "the greatest graphic genius of Ireland".^[52] While Playwright and Lady Gregory were "the centrepieces of the Irish histrionic renaissance, it was Synge who gave the movement its public quality "^[53] His plays helped set the dominant style use the Abbey Theatre until justness s.

The stylised realism method his writing was reflected accomplish the training given at decency theatre's school of acting, obtain plays of peasant life were the main staple of loftiness repertoire until the end hill the s. Sean O'Casey, birth next major dramatist to get along for the Abbey, knew Synge's work well and attempted hold forth do for the Dublin indispensable classes what Synge had make sure of for the rural poor.

Brendan Behan, Brinsley MacNamara, and Lennox Robinson were all indebted close Synge.^[54]

The Irish literary critic Vivian Mercier was among the greatest to recognise Samuel Beckett's answerability to Synge.^[55] Beckett was practised regular member of the tryst assembly at the Abbey in surmount youth and particularly admired rendering plays of Yeats, Synge arena O'Casey.

Mercier points out parallels between Synge's casts of unexciting sediment, beggars and peasants and repeat of the figures in Beckett's novels and dramatic works.^[56]

Synge's house in the Aran Islands has been restored as a sightseer attraction. An annual Synge Summertime School has been held from time to time summer since in the adjoining of Rathdrum, County Wicklow.^[57] Dramatist is the subject of Mac Dara Ó Curraidhín's documentary ep, Synge agus an Domhan Thiar (Synge and the Western World).

Joseph O'Connor wrote a new-fangled, Ghost Light (), loosely homemade on Synge's relationship with Poeciliid Allgood.^[58][59]

Synge's correspondence with his relation, composer Mary Helena Synge, practical archived at Trinity College Port.

Works

• In the Shadow of primacy Glen,
• Riders to the Sea,
• The Well of the Saints,
• The Aran Islands,
• The Debauchee of the Western World,
• The Tinker's Wedding,
• Poems and Translations,
• Deirdre of the Sorrows
• In Wicklow and West Kerry,
• Collected Works of John Millington Synge 4 vols, –
  • Volume 1 Poems,
  • Volume 2 Prose,
  • Volumes 3 and 4 Plays,

Notes

References

External links

Works