Assessing the achievement of J.M. Synge
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Bibliographic Information
Assessing the achievement of J.M. Synge
（Contributions in drama and theatre studies, no. 73）
Greenwood Press, 1996
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [183]-187) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Though J. M. Synge is considered a major figure of Irish drama and an important canonical playwright, he is the subject of fewer and fewer books and conference sessions. In this volume, chapters by expert contributors confront the possibility that Synge's reputation may not be standing the test of time. The chapters reaffirm the relevance of Synge's plays to contemporary audiences and readers and invite a reassessment of his apparently declining popularity. Comparisions of Synge's work to that of other authors reinforce the argument in favor of his continuing relevance.
J. M. Synge is generally considered one of the most important Irish dramatists, and his standing within the larger canon of world literature usually goes unchallenged. But his reputation may not be standing the test of time. A relative dearth of presentations on Synge's work at major national and international conferences and even at regional Irish studies conferences suggests that he is not studied as much as he once was, especially relative to other Irish authors such as Joyce, Yeats, O'Casey, and even Paul Muldoon and Eavan Boland. Tolerance for some of Synge's once-hailed extragavance is also lessening among students of his drama.
The expert contributors of this book demonstrate that Synge's work is of continuing relevance to contemporary audiences and readers. Each of its essays illuminates the worth of Synge's dramatic canon either by some form of reassessment of individual plays or by comparison of Synge's work to that of authors whose reputation is still indisputably well established, such as Yeats, or to that of contemporary authors whose work is much in the public eye, such as Salman Rushdie. New approaches, including a feminist study of the language of Synge's heroines, also help establish the continued relevance of his drama to contemporary readers.
Table of Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments Resentment, Relevance, and the Production History of The Playboy of the Western World by John P. Harrington The Playboy, Critics, and the Enduring Problem of Audience by Ginger Strand A Young Man's Ghost: J. M. Synge, The Playboy of the Western World and W. B. Yeats's A Vision by Ellen Powers Stengel Tragic Self-Referral in Riders to the Sea by Daniel Davy Death and the Colleen: The Shadow of the Glen by Mary Fitzgerald-Hoyt The Wooing of EtAIn: Celtic Myth and The Shadow of the Glen by Coilin D. Owens Of Holy Wells and Sacred Spells: Strange Comedy at the Abbey by Dan Casey "Passing the Gap": Reading the Betwixt and Between of Liminality in J. M. Synge's The Well of the Saints by Carolyn L. Mathews "More Matter for a May Morning": J. M. Synge's The Tinker's Wedding by Robert E. Rhodes "Cute Thinking Women": The Language of Synge's Female Vagrants by Jane Duke Elkins Synge's Deirdre of the Sorrows: Defamiliarizing the Myth by Eileen J. Doll "Stimulating stories of our own land": "History-Making" and the Work of J. M. Synge by Heidi J. Holder The Devil and Auld Mahound: The Trickster Archetype in Synge's Christy Mahon by Way of Rushdie's Muhammad/Mahound by Gale Schricker Swiontkowski J. M. Synge's Vagrant Aesthetic by William Atkinson Selected Bibliography Index
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