Explain J.M.synge as a playwright
Answers
John Millington Synge was an Irish playwright and the co-founder of Irish National Theater. He was best known for his works ‘Riders of the Sea’, ‘Playboy of the Western World’ etc.
The following are some of his contributions as a playwright:
a) Though he came from a well-to-do family, his characters and plots were around poor peasant folk of rural Ireland.
b) Most of his play were enacted in Abbey Theatre, which is also associated with his famous contemporary playwright W. B. Yeats.
c) He has influenced writers like Sean O’Casey, Samuel Beckett etc.
d) Aran Islands, where he spent five productive and crucial years of his life, was the setting for several of his famous one-act plays including ‘Riders of the Sea’.
e) Along with W. B. Yeats, through his plays he contributed to Irish Renaissance.
f) Though had a very short life (he died at the age of 38), he had brought the Irish landscape and theater to the world.
g) His plays were full of rural bawdry, innocence of the rural folk, their sorrows and poor lives, which he observed during his stay on Aran Islands.
Of the seven plays Synge wrote, "The Tinker's Wedding" (1902). "When the Moon has Set" (1903), and the incomplete "Deidre of the Sorrows" apart, most of the others were either directly or indirectly based on stories he had heard during his visits to the Aran Islands.
After returning from the Islands, Synge had finished writing "The Shadow of the Glen", "Riders to the Sea', and "The Tinker's Wedding". Though "The Shadow of the Glen" was attacked by the Nationalists for denigrating Irish womanhood, Synge was dealing with a problem peculiar to rural Ireland - the loveless marriage between a young bride and an old groom. The plays introduces the tramp and similar figures, such as beggars, tinkers and fugitives which are generic Synge heroes.
It is true that "The Tinker's Wedding" is not one of Synge's memorable plays. Yet, the exuberant force that marks it, places it clearly within the dominant boundaries of the boisterous seventeenth century English comic tradition.
Although Synge adapted "The Well of the Saint" (1905) from a medieval French farce, the play reflects the major themes and ideas of his plays. Synge's drama is characterised by the realisation that the real world is constantly evaluated by dreams and the energies of the imagination. The figure of the artist is central to Synge's drama and his comic heroes are variations to this thematic emphasis.
"The Riders to the Sea" has the single unified impression that is basic to one-act play. Synge's choice of the one-act drama as a dramatic form for this particular work seems to acquire a self-justification. Also, this poetic play has the Greek tragedy's influence on it and its characters. The tragic fate of the mother and the family is greatly portrayed here.
J.M Synge as playwright is one of the greatest creator of the Irish theatre. As W.B Yeats reflects his opinions about the legendary dramatist in the poem, "In Memory of Major Robert Gregory":
And that enquiring man John Synge comes next,
That dying chose the living world for text
And never could have rested in the tomb
But that, long travelling, he had come
Towards nightfall upon certain set apart
In a most desolate stony place,
Towards nightfall upon a race
Passionate and simple like his heart.