Interpreting SyngeJohn Millington Synge, controversial in his own time and long established as a major figure of world theatre, has nonetheless suffered relative critical neglect. Where his great contemporaries Yeats and Joyce and his outstanding successor Beckett have attracted whole industries of scholarly attention, Synge, by reason of his short life and limited output, has been relegated to the unconsidered category of minor classic. This volume of essays, arising

an Irishman whose exploits in the bare-knuckle ring made him into an early 19th century folk hero

an artist-in-the-making

they lose their freedom

Interweaving recent cultural and social history

the late Desmond Fitzgerald

Elske Rahill

I would talk to

but that is sufficient – we are all gay as larks

they address topics such as history

Celebrating forty years in publishing

In the aftermath of the Great Famine of 1845-52

evoking a time