Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
John Millington Synge
-
Standard Name: Synge, John Millington
Indexed Name: J. M. Synge
JMS
began publishing early in the twentieth century under the influence of the Irish revival. During his short life he wrote several plays that have remained in the repertoire, while his study of the Aran Islands (a blend of travel writing, folklore, and cultural antholopology) has been equally durable and influential.
JJ
began going to school at the tender age of three: she had problems with her sight and it was felt that this would teach her to recognise her letters. She attended Park House School...
Education
Margaret Kennedy
During her last year at Cheltenham
, MK
heard W. B. Yeats
lecture on the Irish poet and playwright J. M. Synge
.
Biographer Violet Powell
gives Synge's initialswrongly as J. B.
Powell, Violet. The Constant Novelist. W. Heinemann, 1983.
28
Friends, Associates
Augusta Gregory
That same summer Yeats
made an extended stay at AG
's estate. Their friendship flourished, and for twenty years he spent the summers there under her motherly care. Theirs was an extremely close, productive, and...
Friends, Associates
Augusta Gregory
AG
first noticed John Millington Synge
in May 1898, near the ridge of Inishmaan, one of the Aran Islands, where they were both collecting folklore.
Stevenson, Mary Lou Kohfeldt. Lady Gregory: The Woman Behind the Irish Renaissance. Atheneum, 1985.
As a student in Dublin, KOB
eagerly attended the Abbey Theatre
. This was a period between Synge
and O'Casey
, but she delighted in plays by Shaw
, beginning with Man and Superman.
O’Brien, Kate. My Ireland. B. T. Batsford, 1962.
116-17
Literary responses
Augusta Gregory
The collection was widely admired when it first appeared in print. Yeats
praised it in his preface as the best book that has come out of Ireland in my time
qtd. in
McDiarmid, Lucy et al. “Introduction, Notes, and Bibliography”. Selected Writings, Penguin, 1995, pp. xi - xliv, 525.
xxviii
and used it as...
Literary responses
Emily Lawless
Algernon Swinburne
wrote Lawless a gushing letter on reading Grania, describing it as one of the most exquisite and perfect works in the language—unique in pathos, humour, and convincing persuasion of truthfulness.
qtd. in
Sichel, Edith. “Emily Lawless”. Nineteenth Century, Vol.
76
, July 1914, pp. 80-100.
85
J. M. Synge
Literary responses
Teresa Deevy
This work was awarded, jointly with Paul Vincent Carroll
's Things that are Caesar's, the Abbey
's prize for new playwrights. It was revived at the Abbey
in late August 1937. Frank O'Connor
wrote...
Occupation
Augusta Gregory
A plan for a theatre began to emerge, with the stated mission of show[ing] that Ireland is not the home of buffonery and of easy sentiment, as it has been represented, but the home of...
Occupation
Edith Craig
The costumes were judged to be a success, and the performance marked a turning point in her theatrical career. She branched into costume design (having formed a company, Edith Craig and Co.
, which was...
Performance of text
Augusta Gregory
One source of inspiration for this play was the 1887-88 imprisonment of AG
's close friend, Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
, for protesting against the eviction of tenants during the Land War.
McDiarmid, Lucy et al. “Introduction, Notes, and Bibliography”. Selected Writings, Penguin, 1995, pp. xi - xliv, 525.
537, 547
The play...
Performance of text
Augusta Gregory
The Abbey Theatre Company
produced AG
's The White Cockade, a play which J. M. Synge
thought made the writing of historical drama again possible.
qtd. in
Saddlemyer, Ann, and Augusta Gregory. “Foreword and History of First Productions”. The Tragedies and Tragic Comedies of Lady Gregory, Colin Smythe, 1970, p. v - xiii.
vii
Saddlemyer, Ann, and Augusta Gregory. “Foreword and History of First Productions”. The Tragedies and Tragic Comedies of Lady Gregory, Colin Smythe, 1970, p. v - xiii.
ix
Residence
Seamus Heaney
On his resignation from Queen's University, SH
settled in a cottage in the Republic of Ireland: at Glanmore in Wicklow, giving up the routine—and salary—of a teaching position to put the practice of poetry...
Textual Production
Augusta Gregory
Lady Gregory found this play very difficult to write, and turned to both Yeats
and Synge
for help. Her own later diagnosis was, I think I kept too closely to history.
qtd. in
Saddlemyer, Ann, and Augusta Gregory. “Foreword and History of First Productions”. The Tragedies and Tragic Comedies of Lady Gregory, Colin Smythe, 1970, p. v - xiii.
vii
The play was...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Synge, John Millington. Deirdre of the Sorrows. Cuala Press, 1910.
Synge, John Millington. In the Shadow of the Glen. John Quinn, 1904.
Synge, John Millington. In Wicklow, in West Kerry, in the Congested Districts and Under Ether. Maunsel, 1910.
Synge, John Millington. My Wallet of Photographs. Editor Stephens, Lilo, Dolmen, 1971.
Synge, John Millington. Riders to the Sea. 1904.
Synge, John Millington. The Aran Islands. Maunsel, 1907.
Synge, John Millington. The Collected Letters of John Millington Synge: Volume I. Editor Saddlemyer, Ann, Oxford University Press, 1983.
Synge, John Millington. The Playboy of the Western World. 1907.
Synge, John Millington. The Well of the Saints.
Synge, John Millington. Travels in Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara. Serif, 2005.
