John Millington Synge

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Edmund John Millington Synge (16 April 1871 – March 24, 1909), an Irish playwright, prose writer, travel blogger, and collector of folklore.

He was a central figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the Abbey Theatre's co-founders.

He is best known for his play The Playboy of the Western World, which sparked riots in Dublin during its inaugural run at the Abbey Theatre. Synge's essays are mainly concerned with the Roman Catholic peasants of rural Ireland and what he sees as the essential paganism of their world view, despite being from a privileged Anglo-Irish background.

Hodgkin's disease, a metastatic tumor that was then untreatable, was also present in Synge.

He died just weeks before his 38th birthday when he was trying to finish his last play, Deirdre of the Sorrows.

Early life

Synge was born in 1871 in Newtown Villas, Rathfarnham, County Dublin, Ireland, and was the youngest of eight children of upper-middle-class Protestant parents. In Glanmore Castle, County Wicklow, his father, John Hatch Synge, was a barrister and came from a family of landed gentry. Synge's paternal grandfather, John Synge, was an evangelical Christian who participated in the Plymouth Brethren movement, and Robert Traill, a Church of Ireland rector in Schull, County Cork, who died in 1847 during the Great Irish Famine. He was a descendant of Edward Synge, Archbishop of Tuam, and Edward's son Nicholas, Bishop of Killaloe. Mathematician John Lighton Synge and optical microscopy pioneer Edward Hutchinson Synge were among his nephews.

In 1872, Synge's father died of smallpox at the age of 49. On his son's first birthday, he was buried. In Rathgar, County Dublin, his mother moved the family next door to her own mother's house. Synge had a happy childhood there, although she was often sick. He began interest in birdwatching along the banks of the River Dodder, as well as family holidays at the seaside resort of Greystones, County Wicklow, and the family home in Glanmore.

Synge was educated at home and at times at Dublin and Bray colleges, and then studied piano, flute, violin, music theory, and counterpoint at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. He went to Africa to study music but decided against literature instead. In 1891, he was a brilliant student and was given a scholarship. In 1888, the family lived in Kingstown (now Dn Laoghaire), and Synge joined Trinity College, Dublin, Dublin. He earned his bachelor's degree in 1892, having studied Irish and Hebrew, as well as continuing his music studies and performing with the Academy Orchestra in the Antient Concert Rooms. He took private music lessons with Robert Prescott Stewart between November 1889 and 1894.

Synge became interested in Irish antiquity and the Aran Islands and became an Irish scholar for a year. He left the league because, as he told Maud Gonne, "my idea of regeneration for Ireland differs from yours." I want to work on my own for the cause of Ireland, but I will never be able to do so if I am involved in a revolutionary and semi-military movement." He published his first known work, a poem inspired by Wordsworth, Kottabos: A College Miscellany, 1893.

Synge then migrated to Germany to study music after graduating. He lived in Coblenz until 1893 and then moved to Würzburg in January 1894. He decided to forego music and pursue his literary aspirations due in part to his inability and partially to his inability. In June 1894, he returned to Ireland and enrolled at the Sorbonne in January 1895 to study literature and languages.

He and his family spent the summer in Dublin, where he met Cherrie Matheson. He suggested to her in 1895 and again in a year's time, but she turned him down on both directions due to their differing beliefs on faith. Synge was greatly affected by the denial and renewed his resolve to invest as much time as possible outside of Ireland.

In 1896, he travelled to Italy to learn the language before returning to Paris. He considered writing about French writers for the English Press. In that same year, he met W. B. Yeats, who advised him to live for a few years in the Aran Islands, then return to Dublin and dedicate himself to creative art. In 1899, he joined Yeats, Augusta, Lady Gregory, and George William Russell to form the Irish National Theatre Society, which later established the Abbey Theatre. He wrote some pieces of literary criticism for Gonne's Irlande Libre and other journals, as well as unpublished poems and prose in a decadent fin de siècle style. (These essays were eventually collected in the 1960s for his Collected Works.) He also attended lectures at the Sorbonne by Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville, a noted Celtic scholar.

Synge's first attack of Hodgkin's in 1897, after which an enlarged gland was removed from his neck. He toured Lady Gregory's home in Coole Park, County Galway, where he saw Yeats and also Edward Martyn. He spent the following five summers in Paris, collecting tales and folklore, perfecting his Irish, but the majority of the year was spent in Paris. He also went to Brittany on a regular basis. He wrote When the Moon Has Set, his first play that was directed to Lady Gregory for the Irish Literary Theatre in 1900, but she turned down the invitation. The play was not published before it appeared in his Collected Works.

Synge's first account of life on the Aran Islands appeared in the New Ireland Review in 1898, and his book, The Aran Islands, was published in 1907 with illustrations by Jack Butler Yeats. Synge called the book "my first serious piece of work." Lady Gregory read the book and advised Synge to delete any explicit naming of places and to include more folk tales, but he declined to do either because he wanted to create something more realistic. Synge's argument is that it was possible to detect a subpoena of the islanders' pagan beliefs. Synge wrote about a rural life in the Arans based on his experiences.

In 1903, Synge left Paris for London. The previous year, he had written two one-act plays, Riders to the Sea and The Shadow of the Glen. These were granted by Lady Gregory of Lady Gregory, and The Shadow of the Glen was performed at Molesworth Hall in October 1903. In February the following year, Riders to the Sea was staged at the same venue. The Shadow of the Glen, which was billed under the name In the Shadow of the Glen, was included in the bill for the opening of the Abbey Theatre from 27 December 1904 to 3 January 1905. Both plays were based on stories that Synge had collected in the Arans, and Synge used props from the Arana to help set the scene for each of them. He also depended on Hiberno-English, Ireland's dialect, to boost its usefulness as a literary language, partially because the Irish language could not survive.

The Shadow of the Glen is based on a tale about an unfaithful wife and was criticized by Irish nationalist leader Arthur Griffith as "a slur on Irish womanhood." "I got more help from a chink in the floor of the old Wicklow house where I was staying," Synge said years later. Griffith's retaliation sparked further allegations that Synge mistook Irish women in a disparaging manner. Nationalists also attacked riders to the sea, this time, including Patrick Pearse, who protested it due to the author's devotion to God and faith. Pearse, Arthur Griffith, and other conservative Catholics said Synge had done a disservice to Irish nationalism by not depicting his characters, but later critics have said he idealized the Irish peasantry too much. Around this time, Synge's Wedding, a third one-act play, was planned, but it was unlikely to happen, largely because a priest is tied up in a sack, which, as he wrote to the publisher Elkin Mathews in 1905, would possibly upset "a good many of our Dublin family friends."

Synge was appointed literary advisor and became one of the directors along with Yeats and Lady Gregory when the Abbey Theatre was built. As he wrote to Stephen MacKenna, he differed from Yeats and Lady Gregory on what he thinks the Irish theatre should be like.

The Well of the Saints, Synge's next play, was first staged at the Abbey in 1905, much to nationalist skepticism, and then at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1906. Joseph Holloway, a critic, said the play mixed "lyric and dirt."

The Playboy of the Western World, Synge's most popular work, was first performed at the Abbey Theatre on January 26, 1907. It attracted a hostile response from portions of the Irish public in a comedy about apparent patricide. "unmitigated, protracted insult against Irish peasant men, and worse still on Irish girlhood," the Freeman's Journal described it as "an unmitigated, protracted libel against Irish peasant men, and especially against Irish girlhood." Arthur Griffith, who felt that the Abbey Theatre was ineffective politically committed, referred to the performance as "a barbaric and inhuman tale told in the foulest language we have ever heard from a public platform," a statement that depicted Kitty O'Shea's adulterous friendship with Charles Stuart Parnell.

A section of the audience rioted, causing the third act to be played out in a dumbshow. The turbulence lasted for a week, delaying the following performances. The audience had "disgraced yourselves once more," Yeats wrote. Is this supposed to be an ever-initiating commemoration of Ireland's genius?

Synge first and then O'Casey?"

Although the writing of The Tinker's Wedding began at the same time as Riders to the Sea and In the Shadow of the Glen, Synge took five years to complete, and was not finished in 1907. Riders appeared in the Racquet Court Theatre in Galway on January 4, 1907, but not until 1909, and only then in London. Daniel Corkery, the first critic to attend the performance, wrote, "One is sorry Synge ever wrote such poor stuff," the author said, "One is sorry Synge ever wrote so poor a story" and "one may not have understood why it should have been staged anywhere."

Early work

Synge returned to Germany to study music after graduating. He remained in Coblenz until 1893 and then moved to Würzburg in January 1894. He quit playing in public partly due to his timidity about performing in public and a part of his inability, he opted to avoid music and pursue his literary interests. He returned to Ireland in June 1894 and Sorbonne's January 1895 to study literature and languages.

He and his family spent the summer in Dublin and met Cherrie Matheson. He suggested to her in 1895 and then again next year, but she turned him down on both directions due to their differing views on faith. Synge was greatly affected by this decision and reaffirmed his resolve to spend as much time as possible outside of Ireland.

He travelled to Italy in 1896 to learn the language before returning to Paris. He wanted to write about French authors for the English press. He met W. B. Yeats in the same year, who advised him to live in the Aran Islands for a while, but then return to Dublin and devote himself to creative work. In 1899, he founded the Irish National Theatre Society, which later established the Abbey Theatre, alongside Yeats, Augusta, Lady Gregory, and George William Russell. He wrote several pieces of literary criticism for Gonne's Irlande Libre and other journals, as well as unpublished poems and prose in a decadent fin de siècle style. (These essays were eventually collected in the 1960s as part of his Collected Works.) He attended lectures at the Sorbonne by noted Celtic scholar Henri d'Arbois de Jubainville.

Synge's first attack of Hodgkin was in 1897, after which an enlarged gland was removed from his neck. He paid a visit to Lady Gregory's home in Coole Park, County Galway, where he met Yeats and then Edward Martyn. He lived in Paris for the majority of each year, collecting tales and folklore, perfecting his Irish, but not for the rest of the year. He has also visited Brittany on a daily basis. During this period, he wrote When the Moon Has Set, which he sent to Lady Gregory for the Irish Literary Theatre in 1900, but she turned down the offer. The play was not released until it appeared in his Collected Works.

Synge's first account of life on the Aran Islands appeared in the New Ireland Review in 1898, and his book, The Aran Islands, was published in 1907 with illustrations by Jack Butler Yeats. Synge called the book "my first serious piece of work." Lady Gregory read the book and advised Synge to avoid any explicit naming of places and to insert more folk tales, but he refused to do so because he wanted to make something more realistic. Synge's argument was that under the islander's Catholicism, it was possible to find a subtum of their ancestors' pagan beliefs. Synge wrote about rural life in the Arans from his time in the Arans.

Synge left Paris for London in 1903. The previous year, he had written two one-act plays, Riders to the Sea and The Shadow of the Glen. These were welcomed by Lady Gregory, and The Shadow of the Glen was performed at Molesworth Hall in October 1903. In February of the following year, Riders to the Sea was staged at the same venue. The Shadow of the Glen, which appeared under the heading In the Shadow of the Glen, was part of the bill establishing the Abbey Theatre's first run from 1904 to 1905. Both plays were based on Synge's stories about him in the Arans, and Synge used Arana props to help set the stage for each of them. He also relied on Hiberno-English, Ireland's dialect, to improve its usefulness as a literary form, partially because the Irish language could not survive.

The Shadow of the Glen is based on a tale about an unfaithful wife, and was sluggish by Irish nationalist leader Arthur Griffith's description of it as "a slur on Irish womanhood." "I got more help when writing The Shadow of the Glen some years ago from a chink in the floor of the old Wicklow house, where I was staying," Synge said. Griffith's criticism sparked further allegations that Synge mistook Irish women in an offensive manner. Nationalists attacked riders to the Sea this week, including Patrick Pearse, who protested it due to the author's devotion to God and faith. Pearse, Arthur Griffith, and other conservative Catholics believed Synge did a disservice to Irish nationalism by not idealizing his characters, but later critics have argued that he idealized the Irish peasantry too much. Around this period, a third one-act play, The Tinker's Wedding, was drafted, but Synge made no attempt to make it happen, mainly because of a scene in which a priest is tied up in a sack, which, as he wrote to the publisher Elkin Mathews in 1905, would possibly enrage "a good many of our Dublin friends."

Synge, a literary consultant, and Lady Gregory were among the Abbey Theatre's artists when it was established. As he wrote to Stephen MacKenna, he diverted from Yeats and Lady Gregory on what he thinks the Irish theatre should be like.

In 1905, Synge's next play, The Well of the Saints, was staged at the Abbey, sparking nationalist disapproval, and then in 1906 at the Deutsche Theater in Berlin. Joseph Holloway, a theater critic, said that the performance was a blend of "lyric and dirt."

The Playboy of the Western World, Synge's most popular masterpiece, first appeared at the Abbey Theatre on January 26, 1907. It attracted a hostile response from sections of the Irish population, a comedy about apparent patricide. The Freeman's Journal described it as "an unmitigated, protracted libel against Irish peasant men, and possibly still on Irish girlhood." Arthur Griffith, who believed that the Abbey Theatre was insufficiently political committed, characterized the performance as "a vile and inhuman story told in the foulest terms we've ever heard on a public forum," and noted a little bit on the virtue of Irish womanhood in the line. "... a drift of selected females standing in their shifts" depicts Kitty O'Shea and her adulterous friendship with Charles Stuart Parnell.

A section of the audience rioted, causing the third act to be performed out in a dumbshow. The storms lasted for a week, halting the following performances. The audience had "disgraced yourselves again," Yeats said. Is this to be an ever-eventing commemoration of the arrival of Irish genius?

Synge first and then O'Casey?"

Despite the fact that The Tinker's Wedding began as Riders to the Sea and In the Shadow of the Glen, Synge took five years to complete, and wasn't completed in 1907. Riders appeared in Galway's Racquet Court Theatre on January 4, 1907, but not again until 1909, and only then in London. Daniel Corkery, the first critic to attend the play, said, "One is sorry Synge ever wrote so bad a thing," said one, "One cannot understand why it never should have been staged anywhere."

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