The Playboy of the Western World by J.M. Synge

In 1901, he turned his notes into a collection of essays, The Aran Islands, and wrote his first play, When the Moon Has Set. Yeats inspired Synge to go to the Aran Islands, off the coast of Ireland and, as Yeats notes in his preface to The Well of the Saints, encouraged him to 'live there as if you were one of the people themselves express a life that has never found expression.' For four years, Synge studied Irish life on the islands as he took photographs of the islanders and careful notes on their speech and habits.

During his time in Paris, Synge met William Butler Yeats, who would have a dramatic effect on the rest of his life. A year later, Synge began language and literature studies at the Sorbonne. Synge left Ireland in 1893 to study music in Germany, but his stage fright caused him to reconsider his career choice. Synge began to write poetry during his years at Trinity as well as at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, where he completed graduate work in music theory. He began his studies in music theory and Irish history and language at Trinity College in Dublin when he was seventeen and completed a bachelor's degree in 1892. Synge suffered from poor health during his youth, which eventually prompted his mother to have him tutored at home. After his father died a year later, Synge, his three brothers, and one sister were raised in a comfortable, upper-class home by their devoutly religious mother. Synge was born on April 16, 1871, in the Dublin suburb of Newton Little, to John Hatch and Kathleen Traill Synge.

In his depiction of the interaction between Christy and the villagers, and especially of the relationship between Christy and Pegeen Flaherty, an attractive, strong-willed, young local woman, Synge explores the effects of social conventions and celebrates the power of the imagination. The villagers initially embrace Christy, determining that his courageous act has made him 'the playboy of the western world.' Their vision of him, however, soon changes as the plot develops. The play focuses on the reception given to Christy Mahon as he wanders into a small Irish village, declaring that he has just murdered his father. Critical acclaim, however, has grown over the years to the point where it is now regarded as the masterwork of one of the most highly regarded Irish playwrights in the modern age. His realistic yet poetic depiction of that incident and the manners and mores of Irish life angered many who thought the play indecent and guilty of promoting negative stereotypes. Inspired by his close observations of the inhabitants of the Aran Islands off the western coast of Ireland, Synge based the play on a historical incident.

J(ohn) M(illington) Synge's The Playboy of the Western World caused riots during its opening week in Dublin in 1907. The Playboy of the Western World INTRODUCTION

The Playboy of the Western World by J.M. Synge