Biography And Works Of John Millington Synge
John Millington Synge (1871-1909) was the greatest dramatist of the Irish Literary Renaissance. Though he wrote plays few in number, but" they are of a stature to place him among the greatest English dramatists." The shadows of Glen (1903), Riders to the Sea (1904), The Well of the Saints (1905), The Tinker's Wedding (1907), The Playboy of the Western World (1907) and Deirdre of the Sorrows (1910) are the famous plays of Synge.
Synge had the experience of living with the peasants, fishermen of the island of Aran and all the plays of Synge based upon these direct experiences. As for Synge the two essentials of drama are reality and joy and these came out of the impression of life. His realism, however, is not the photoghraphic recording of the plays of the realistic,movement, which he felt, missed the essential poetry and joy of life. He thought the Ibsenian influence to be harmful to the spirit of the drama. He seeks inspiration in the myths and legends of earlier days of Ireland like Yeats. Yeats seeks the elements of a philosophy in the myth where as 'Synge uses it merely as the core around which are built his studies of Irish life and character.
Synge's plays teaches no lesson, no moral calls for reform like the problem plays of Galsworthy and the Shavian plays of ideas. To him drama is like a scene taken out of life. Both in his tragedies and comedies he is objective, impersonal, detached, and he keeps himself and his opinions wholly out of the picture." The drama, like a symphony, does not teach or prove anything."
Synge sees to the fundamental importance of the forces of nature in the life of man like Wordsworth. The presence of nature is felt in everyone of his plays. Sometimes it is presented as a fear-some relentless energy (Riders to the Sea), sometimes a kind of comforter (The Well of the Saints), but always a chief actor in the drama. His approach to nature, is not, as Wordsworth's is, didactic or moralistic -his approach to nature has in it something pagan.
Undertone of fear is echoed in Synge's plays. It is not the fear of danger or hardship that a young man can bravely meet or endure, but the old-age fear of weakness or want of helplessness. And this vey fear is echoed in Maurya's words " It's hard set we'll be surely the day you're drowned with the rest. What way will I live and the girls with me, and I an old woman looking for the grave?" (Riders to the Sea)
Synge has mastery over both tragedy and comedy. Tragedy is always near at hand in his comedies, but his tragedies are unrelieved by any comedy. Riders to the Sea and Deirdre of the Sorrows are pitched to the tragic key from beginning to end.
Synge is very much unique in his style. Though his plays are written in prose, but they have the rhythm and cadences of poetry. As he says, "from herds and fishermen, from beggars and ballad singers near Dublin and from servant girls in the kitchen" he gets his language. Moreover he adds a rhythm all his own and as a result his prose dialogue frequently has the emotional effect of natural poetry.
Synge held a high place as a dramatist. He shadowed Shakespeare in many respects. Like Shakespeare he has not only sure dramatic instinct and a keen insight into the motive forces of human character, b but also the gift of transmuting pathos and ugliness into poetry and beauty and the exuberance inseparable from all great geniuses.
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