John Millington Synge

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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.
Photograph of oil painting of John Millington Synge, with a gold frame. Synge is wearing a black suit and vest, black tie, and white collared shirt, and he is looking directly at the viewer. His hands appear to be adjusting his suit.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Education Jennifer Johnston
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 Constance Countess Markievicz
These members included Æ (George Russell ), W. B. and Jack Yeats , J. M. Synge , and William Orpen .
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.
125
She did not speak directly to him, but...
Leisure and Society Kate O'Brien
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 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...
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
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...
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...
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
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...
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 W. B. Yeats
He and his wife Georgiana travelled to Stockholm to accept the prize. In his acceptance speech, Yeats acknowledged the importance of Augusta Gregory and John Synge to his writing.
“Dictionary of Literary Biography online”. Gale Databases: Literature Resource Center-LRC.
19

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.