The Aran Islands

by J. M. Synge

Overview

Playwright John Millington Synge visited an isolated group of rocky islands west of Ireland each year between 1898 and 1901, where he found inspiration for his dramas among the folklore and anecdotes told to him by local fisherfolk. This memorable record of Synge's days amid the islanders and their tales of fairies and Celtic heroes offers an enchanting portrait of the wellspring of the Irish cultural renaissance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781447488682
Publisher:	Quasten Press
Publication date:	03/05/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	218
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

In the late 1890s, John Synge, in his middle twenties and unsure of his vocation, made his way to Paris to study French literature and become a literary critic. There he met William Butler Yeats. The eminent poet advised Synge to drop his involvement with fin de siècle French authors, return to Ireland, and describe a society with which he had a natural connection. Synge first traveled to the primitive, little-known Aran Islands in 1898. His trip proved to be a wonderfully fruitful and decisive experience. He then went back for part of each summer until 1902.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Author's Foreword
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV

Editorial Reviews

In 1897 Synge took seriously Yeats’s command to quit Paris and “Go to the Aran Islands,” and it’s well that he did. For he found there a rough, beautiful people living close to the sea, speaking the native Irish and steeped in its stories, all of which became the backbone of this work. Four visits are recounted here. But mostly it is stories! And how Donal Donnelly brings them to a lilting life! Though Irish isn’t spoken in the book, the rhythm and feel of the native tongue are conveyed by Donnelly’s reading and Synge’s lyrical renderings. As each one tells his story, the “little people” take life, the Irish takes hold, and the reader is transported to these harsh islands, struggling for life just beyond Galway Bay. P.E.F. ©AudioFile, Portland, Maine

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