A great amount of talent was accumulated in one place, and they all had similar goals of creating truly Irish literature. Many Irish masters from this period are well known such as William Butler Yeats and James Joyce, some fall through the cracks of history and are under appreciated despite their many contributions. Though not completely unknown, Synge's contributions to the Irish national literature are often overlooked. The works of John Millington Synge provide a well-crafted base for the Irish Renaissance and are under appreciated due to his style and his opinions.
John Millington Synge was born in Wicklow, Ireland (a section of Dublin) to the Ascendancy (ruling) class (Watson 35). His father died when he was young, and his mother who was a very devout protestant raised him. Synge's mother was not concerned with education, so Synge was largely self-educated through his early years, but managed to acquire knowledge quickly. This led to Synge being devoid of contact his own age which led to him being isolated and disconnected from others, a theme that appears later in his life and work (Stephens 1-20).
Synge received a degree from Trinity College and then moved to continental Europe to study in Germany and France. Throughout his education, Synge focused his studies primarily on Irish history and Gaelic as well as the classic theatrical literature of the Continent. When he returned to Ireland he visited the Aran Islands at the request of William Butler Yeats, a close friend who had been there recently. Yeats wanted Synge to help him reinvigorate Irish theatre and create an Irish National Theatre and he hoped that Aran Island would reassert Synge into the lives of the Irish People (Yeats 6-20). Synge Immediately fell in love with the island and its inhabitants. He returned there every summer compiling notes and preparing The Arran Islands, his account of everything he saw (Price-79).
Here is where Synge began to write, and he attributes Arran Island as his first work which all others stem from (Watson 45). This event, however, was not a transformation as it was a further step in his journey to capture the essence of Ireland. Synge never wanted to write how he wanted Ireland to be; he wanted to write about what was there and what he saw. His journeys allowed him to recreate life as it was and to present that reality to audiences who refused to believe it. He never tried to glorify or correct, or even preach. He wanted the people to be able to see his works and relate them to the Irish experience. He brought the peasants to the stage of Ireland and glorified them by showing all of the faults of the common person of Ireland.
Synge was a realist. He believed in creating plays that were “the fundamental realities of life” rather than mythic plays of idealistic natures (McCarthy 166). He literally walked through Ireland to create his works. He used his experiences to create realistic settings and characters. Much of the play, “The Shadow of the Glen” came from listening at a hole in the floor of his Inn room that led to the Kitchen (Watson 49). Synge wanted nothing more than to capture the real Ireland. He was so adamant about this that he had a disregard for criticism (Yeats 1,8). He had faith in his writing and like all people with faith he placed it above everything else. When compared with his contemporaries it is easy to see how Synge would be glossed over by those who wrote the histories. His companions and contemporaries were able to sell themselves in ways that Synge never could or wanted to do. The acclaim they received and the jeers he heard created a distance between him and his fellow writers that pushed more and more out of the mainstream and into the fringe of the time.
To create his realistic style, Synge experienced opposite journey of some Irish authors. Rather than fleeing the country to better his writing or distance him, Synge studied abroad first, and then returned home to immerse himself in the country. He toured the country of his birth and delved into its people to create a foundation for the Irish Literary Renaissance based in Irish heritage. The goal for Synge (as well as others such as Yeats and Lady Augusta Gregory) was to create a new Irish culture that emphasized their Celtic roots, while at the same time incorporated the undeniable Anglican influences that had permeated the country (McCarthy 163). For example, these authors wrote in English, but the tried to recreate the distinct dialects of Ireland and the rhythmic patterns of the speech of the country's people.
Synge personally embodied this dual Anglo/Celt philosophy through own his long, internal struggle with Christianity. Having read Darwin's Origin of Species early in life, heand never looked at his faith the same way (Stephens 5). He renounced his Christianity, in the words of Synge, “By the time I was sixteen or seventeen,” but his views were still strongly influenced by his Protestant heritage for years to come (Roche 107). When he first began to move away from Christianity, he replaced his belief in one god with a belief in the zeitgeist, spirituality and beliefs of Ireland. He began to worship the myths, traditions and writings of his country and the land itself.
