Riders to the Sea (eBook, ePUB) - M. Synge, J.
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INTRODUCTION
It must have been on Synge's second visit to the Aran Islands that he had the experience out of which was wrought what many believe to be his greatest play. The scene of "Riders to the Sea" is laid in a cottage on Inishmaan, the middle and most interesting island of the Aran group. While Synge was on Inishmaan, the story came to him of a man whose body had been washed up on the far away coast of Donegal, and who, by reason of certain peculiarities of dress, was suspected to be from the island. In due course, he was recognised as a native of Inishmaan, in exactly the manner…mehr

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Produktbeschreibung
INTRODUCTION

It must have been on Synge's second visit to the Aran Islands that he had the experience out of which was wrought what many believe to be his greatest play. The scene of "Riders to the Sea" is laid in a cottage on Inishmaan, the middle and most interesting island of the Aran group. While Synge was on Inishmaan, the story came to him of a man whose body had been washed up on the far away coast of Donegal, and who, by reason of certain peculiarities of dress, was suspected to be from the island. In due course, he was recognised as a native of Inishmaan, in exactly the manner described in the play, and perhaps one of the most poignantly vivid passages in Synge's book on "The Aran Islands" relates the incident of his burial.
The other element in the story which Synge introduces into the play is equally true. Many tales of "second sight" are to be heard among Celtic races. In fact, they are so common as to arouse little or no wonder in the minds of the people. It is just such a tale, which there seems no valid reason for doubting, that Synge heard, and that gave the title, "Riders to the Sea", to his play.
It is the dramatist's high distinction that he has simply taken the materials which lay ready to his hand, and by the power of sympathy woven them, with little modification, into a tragedy which, for dramatic irony and noble pity, has no equal among its contemporaries. Great tragedy, it is frequently claimed with some show of justice, has perforce departed with the advance of modern life and its complicated tangle of interests and creature comforts. A highly developed civilisation, with its attendant specialisation of culture, tends ever to lose sight of those elemental forces, those primal emotions, naked to wind and sky, which are the stuff from which great drama is wrought by the artist, but which, as it would seem, are rapidly departing from us. It is only in the far places, where solitary communion may be had with the elements, that this dynamic life is still to be found continuously, and it is accordingly thither that the dramatist, who would deal with spiritual life disengaged from the environment of an intellectual maze, must go for that experience which will beget in him inspiration for his art. The Aran Islands from which Synge gained his inspiration are rapidly losing that sense of isolation and self-dependence, which has hitherto been their rare distinction, and which furnished the motivation for Synge's masterpiece. Whether or not Synge finds a successor, it is none the less true that in English dramatic literature "Riders to the Sea" has an historic value which it would be difficult to over-estimate in its accomplishment and its possibilities. A writer in The Manchester Guardian shortly after Synge's death phrased it rightly when he wrote that it is "the tragic masterpiece of our language in our time; wherever it has been played in Europe from Galway to Prague, it has made the word tragedy mean something more profoundly stirring and cleansing to the spirit than it did."
Autorenporträt
John Millington Synge (1871–1909) remains one of the most influential figures in Irish literature, best known for his role in the Irish Literary Revival and for his contributions to the Abbey Theatre. Born in Rathfarnham, near Dublin, Synge came from a middle-class Protestant background that afforded him the educational opportunities at Trinity College, though his studies there left him unsatisfied, prompting him to pursue music and literature in Continental Europe (P. J. Mathews, 2002). It was W.B. Yeats who urged Synge to focus on the rich traditions of their homeland, which led to the development of Synge's unique literary voice (M. Robinson, 1994). His experiences living on the Aran Islands inspired him profoundly and shaped his most celebrated works. His crowning achievement, 'Riders to the Sea' (1904), encapsulates the power of the sea and the struggles of the people living on the Irish western coastline. It is a short, tragic play of immense intensity that brings to life the age-old human battle against the elements through the lens of an Aran Island family's loss. Synge's plays often drew upon the everyday speech of rural Ireland and combined it with poetic prose to create a style that was at once lyrical and grounded in the realities of peasant life. His exploration of themes such as fatalism, the power of nature, and the rural Irish experience contributed to the esteem in which his work is held within the canon of Irish drama and solidified his standing among contemporaries like Yeats and Lady Gregory (R. F. Foster, 2001). Synge's profound influence on Irish theatre and his distinctive blend of naturalism and symbolism make his work, particularly 'Riders to the Sea', an enduring study in human resilience and despair.