John Millington Synge

John Millington Synge (April 16, 1871 - March 24, 1909) was an Irish dramatist, poet, prose writer, and collector of folklore. He was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival and was one of the cofounders of the Abbey Theatre. He is best known for the play The Playboy of the Western World, which caused riots in Dublin during its opening run at the Abbey.

The emerging writer

After graduating, Synge decided that he wanted to be a professional musician and went to Germany to study music. He stayed at Coblenz in 1893 and moved to Wurzburg in the January of the following year. Partly because he was painfully shy about performing in public and partly because of doubts over his ability, Synge decided to abandon a musical career and pursue his literary interests. He returned to Ireland in June, 1894 and moved to Paris the following January to study literature and languages at the Sorbonne.

Related Topics:
Musician - Germany - Coblenz - Wurzburg - 1894 - Paris - Sorbonne

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During summer holidays with his family in Dublin, he met and fell in love with Cherrie Matheson, a friend of his cousin and a Plymouth Brethren. He proposed to her in 1895 and again the next year, but she turned him down on both occasions because of their differing religious viewpoints. This rejection affected Synge greatly and reinforced his determination to spend as much time as possible outside Ireland.

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In 1896 he visited Italy to study the language for a time before returning to Paris. Later that year he met William Butler Yeats, who encouraged Synge to live for a while in the Aran Islands and then return to Dublin and devote himself to creative work. He also spent some time in Maud Gonne’s circle in Paris but soon dissociated himself from them. He also wrote an amount of literary criticism for Gonne's Irlande Libre and other journals as well as a unpublished poems and prose in a decadent, fin de siècle style. These writings were eventually gathered together in the 1960s for his Collected Works. He also attended lectures at the Sorbonne by the noted Celtic scholar Henri d’Arbois de Jubainville.

Related Topics:
1896 - Italy - William Butler Yeats - Aran Islands - Maud Gonne - Fin de siècle - 1960s - Henri d’Arbois de Jubainville

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