J.M. Synge's Plays, Poems & Prose Book

Synge, along with Yeats and Lady Gregory, is one of the titans of Irish theatre, and of Irish literature in general, and this collection of plays, poems, translations of classical source material, and a sizable excerpt of his writings about life on the Aran Islands (a stronghold of Irish Gaelic to this day) goes a long way toward illustrating how such a relatively short life could have such a strong influence. Far more than Yeats, Synge sought to find an authentic Irish voice, and to attempt to found a national literature upon it. He learned the language still spoken daily in the west of Ireland, something Yeats never did, and attempted to mirror its idiosyncrasies, cadences, idioms, etc. in the spoken words of his plays, whence most of his fame. In plays like The Tinker's Wedding, The Well of the Saints, and the infamous Playboy of the Western World, he held up his version of the Irish spirit for all to see, and I think was genuinely surprised that so many were offended. Unlike Yeats, Synge was never ashamed of the preoccupations of the common man, and what he lacked in Yeats' genius, he made up for in honesty and intensity. No, he is not Yeats' equal, but The Gaiety, The Abbey, The Gate, and the rest of Dublin's and Ireland's theatres would be much more the poorer were it not for his work.