Authors: Sanford V. Sternlicht
ISBN-13: 9780815627739, ISBN-10: 0815627734
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Date Published: May 1998
Edition: 1ST
A Reader's Guide to Modern Irish Drama provides an introduction to one of the great dramatic and theatrical traditions of Western culture. Filling a pressing need in the literature, this book includes information on the most recent and youngest playwrights working today at the Abbey, Druid, and Lyric Theatres. Most significantly, Sternlicht discusses the important plays of all the playwrights included and the major themes of modern Irish drama: the struggle for independence, the cruelty of poverty, the pains of emigration and exile, the decline of the Anglo-Irish ascendency, the power of religion, the longing for land, and the familial and gender conflicts of a people in post-colonial transition.
Preface | ||
Backgrounds | ||
1 | Early Irish History | 3 |
2 | The Century of Destiny | 8 |
3 | The Literary Tradition | 12 |
4 | The Irish Theater | 16 |
Playwrights and Plays | ||
5 | A Thematic Introduction | 29 |
6 | Lady Gregory | 33 |
7 | William Butler Yeats | 46 |
8 | George Bernard Shaw | 64 |
9 | John Millington Synge | 68 |
10 | Other Early Modern Dramatists | 77 |
Padraic Colum | 77 | |
T. C. Murray | 79 | |
George Fitzmaurice | 81 | |
Lennox Robinson | 83 | |
George Shiels | 85 | |
11 | Sean O'Casey | 88 |
12 | Along with O'Casey | 96 |
Paul Vincent Carroll | 96 | |
Denis Johnston | 98 | |
M. J. Molloy | 100 | |
13 | Samuel Beckett | 102 |
14 | Brendan Behan | 112 |
15 | Brian Friel | 116 |
16 | Other Contemporary Dramatists | 128 |
Hugh Leonard | 128 | |
John B. Keene | 129 | |
Eugene McCabe | 129 | |
Tom Mac Intyre | 130 | |
Thomas Kilroy | 131 | |
Tom Murphy | 132 | |
Stewart Parker | 134 | |
Christina Reid | 135 | |
Neil Donnelly | 136 | |
Anne Devlin | 137 | |
Marie Jones | 138 | |
Frank McGuinness | 139 | |
Michael Harding | 141 | |
Sebastian Barry | 141 | |
Niall Williams | 142 | |
Donal O'Kelly | 143 | |
Vincent Woods | 144 | |
Marina Carr | 145 | |
Martin McDonagh | 146 | |
Selected Critical Bibliography | 151 | |
Index | 153 |