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National Theatre. In 1899-1900 strong patriotic feeling and interest in the peasant life and folk-lore of their country impelled a group of playwrights and patrons to organize the Irish National Theatre Society. Prominent in the effort were Lady Augusta Gregory, William Butler Yeats, Edward Martyn, George Moore, and G. W. Russell ("A. E."). The object of the Irish National Theatre is twofold: to produce plays of finer literary quality than one witnessed in most theatres, and to set forth native Irish life and character, both peasant and heroic. The movement made strong patriotic appeal. Stories were gathered from the lips of living peasants, and anything affecting Irish tradition or folk-lore was treasured. While such strong and constructive elements entered into the new institution, in another way, especially as represented by Yeats, it has been but one more expression of the neo-romantic tendencies of which we have already heard so much.

Lady Gregory, already distinguished for her studies in Celtic mythology, from the very first has been one of the most important figures of the Irish National Theatre. She has lectured and written much, co-operating with innumerable organizations for the welfare of her country; and especially has she been distinguished in her capacity as manager of the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. Here she has shown anew the dramatic possibilities of peasant life and of the one-act play; she has built up a strong stock company with new traditions; and generally has succeeded in improving the taste of her public. Representative of her wholesome lighter comedy are Spreading the News (1904) and Hyacinth Halvey (1906), both included in the volume, Seven Short Plays; while The Gaol Gate (1906), The Traveling Man (1901), and The Rising of

the Moon (1907) represent her more serious temper. Lady Gregory is the perfect representative of the Irish National Theatre uninfluenced by continental tendencies.

97. William Butler Yeats.-William Butler Yeats (1865-), born in Dublin, in addition to training in his native city and in London, also studied the theatre in Paris in his earlier years. The fact is important in connection with his work, for to his exposition of the lore and legend of Ireland he has also brought some touch with the neo-romanticists. In his wandering with "the wind among the reeds" or by "shadowy waters" he is one of the music-makers or dreamers of dreams of whom O'Shaughnessy wrote; while in his mysticism, his symbolism, and the general quality of his imagination he invites comparison with Maeterlinck. In the midst of one of the greatest political problems of the age, he has held firmly to the creation of beauty. With a temperament so subjective he is naturally more lyrical than dramatic; but his plays are not only fanciful and romantic but characterized by much clever craftsmanship. Outstanding are The Land of Heart's Desire (1894) and The Countess Cathleen (1899). The first of these plays, partly in prose and partly in verse, tells the story of a young bride who grows weary of her monotonous life and entreats the fairies to release her. The old parents tell her that she should listen first of all to the voice of duty, and the priest begs her not to leave her faithful young husband. The fairy wins, however, and, leaving a dead wife in the cottage, bears away the living bride to the mystic world. The Countess Cathleen sets forth the great efforts and the sacrifice of the Countess in behalf of the starving peasants, many of whom sell their souls for food to the demons dis

guised as merchants. The play is full of supernaturalism and symbolism, and guardian angels save the soul of the Countess at the end. In similar vein, but of even more poetic than dramatic quality, are Cathleen ni Hoolihan, The Shadowy Waters, and Deirdre, all embodying the superstition, the fairy lore, and the lively imagination of Ireland.

98. John Millington Synge.-John Millington Synge (1871-1909) was one of the most promising of recent English or Irish writers. Especially was he highly endowed intellectually. He won with equal facility a prize in Hebrew or Irish at Trinity College, Dublin, or a scholarship at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. As a boy, we are told, "he knew the note and plumage of every bird, and when and where they were to be found." For years he wandered about the Continent gathering impressions here and there until his friend Yeats found him in France and induced him to return to Ireland and write for the new theatre. Back in Dublin he never mentioned politics, he read no newspapers, and very little current literature. With him, however, the dramatic exceeded the lyrical faculty. He wrote only six short plays, all between 1903 and 1907; but the very first of these showed that he had come at once into full possession of his powers. From the beginning his style was stripped of needless verbiage and vibrant with emotion. Riders to the Sea, a tragedy in one act, and one of the most powerful productions in recent dramatic literature, sets forth the impressive sorrow of old Maurya, whose husband and five sons have already been drowned, and who now sees her last son, Bartley, given to the sea. The Playboy of the Western World, a boisterous and fantastically humorous

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play in three acts, is concerned with the real awakening of the Playboy, his performing of wonderful feats, and his ardent love-making to the maiden Pegeen. At the time of his death Synge was giving final form to Deirdre of the Sorrows, a three-act play employing a theme also used by Yeats and Russell, that of the beautiful princess who, after seven years of perfect union with her lover, when he was slain went forth to be with him in the hereafter. was a true dramatist and his passing was an inestimable loss to the theatre not only of Ireland but of the world. 99. Other Recent Dramatists.-The great emphasis on the drama within the last generation has naturally brought on the scene numerous writers, some of whom are quite as worthy of detailed mention as those that have been considered. An early contemporary of Pinero and Jones was Sydney Grundy (1848-1914), an honest and clever craftsman who was borne hither and thither by the moral, decadent, and technical tendencies of his day and who somehow failed to live up to early expectations. After much adaptation from French dramatists he produced such plays as A Fool's Paradise (1889) and Sowing the Wind (1893). Another earnest worker who was also alive to new ideas and tendencies but who failed of final achievement was St. John Hankin (1860-1909), represented by The Two Mr. Weatherbys (1903), The Cassilis Engagement (1907), and The Last of the De Mullins (1908). John Oswald Francis (1882-) first awakened wide interest by his four-act play, Change, winner in the Welsh Drama Competition in 1912. Probably most representative of the younger writers of the Irish National Theatre is St. John G. Ervine (1883-), who shows unusual mastery of his craft and grasp of character, as in

Mixed Marriage (1911), Jane Clegg (1914), and John Ferguson (1915). John Masefield (1875-) entered the field of the drama with The Tragedy of Nan (1908), while another outstanding poet of the day, John Drinkwater (1882-), has recently achieved great success with Abraham Lincoln (1919). Lord Dunsany, Arnold Bennett, and W. Somerset Maugham also have high rank among living English dramatists.

100. Current Tendencies.-It is evident from what has been said that the decade 1880-1890 was one of experimentation in the history of the English drama and the decade 1890-1900 one of ferment. In the latter period the drama assumed new importance as a social force, and there was wide discussion of the mutual obligation of the theatre and the public. About the year 1894 controversy raged on the question of Ibsen and his influence, which by many conservative and strong elements was considered unhealthy, while playwrights and patrons of the theatre were quite determined that the drama should be free. In the same year in which this discussion was uppermost there developed a new vogue of spectacle and melodrama, closely associated with the dramatization of popular fiction, which ran directly counter to the more intellectual elements of reform. Representative productions were Trilby, The Prisoner of Zenda, The Sign of the Cross, and the American Ben-Hur, which for more than a decade excelled all other productions in the attracting of great audiences. Closely related to these romantic tendencies in the earlier years of the century was a new emphasis on the old morality, represented by Everyman, and on plays based on stories from the Bible.

Meanwhile organization went forward. We have al

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