Synge and "The Curse"

[lavendar1]

A little acid from the author of Playboy of the Western World that was supposedly directed to the sister of an 'enemy' who disapproved of the play:

The Curse
by John Millington Synge


Lord, confound this surly sister,
Blight her brow with blotch and blister,
Cramp her larynx, lung, and liver,
In her guts a galling give her.
Let her live to earn her dinners
In Mountjoy with seedy sinners:
Lord, this judgment quickly bring,
And I'm your servant, J. M. Synge.

I wonder if this play's still being performed? I guess it caused quite a raucous when it premiered.

[Niamh]

yes the play is still being preformed and is even studied in secondary schools and colleges across Ireland. Had actually typed up a real long message about the events around the play and the reasons for the poem but i got logged out and it got deleted when i went to send it! o well!

read the novel 'murder at the Abbey Theatre' it will tell you what happened.

[lavendar1]

Originally Posted by niamhking

yes the play is still being preformed and is even studied in secondary schools and colleges across Ireland. Had actually typed up a real long message about the events around the play and the reasons for the poem but i got logged out and it got deleted when i went to send it! o well!

Wow! A response -- thank-you, and I'm sorry I don't have benefit of your original message. Synge fascinates me (his disposition matched against his creative work). I think people in general (at least in my country) don't realize his literary impact. I guess he walked in Yeats's shadow.

I love the quote that's right here on the lit network's biography of Synge:

He was a drifting silent man full of hidden passion and loved wild islands, because there, set out in the light of day, he saw what lay hidden in himself. -- W.B. Yeats

It speaks, I think, to a writer's raging mind -- in the midst of (a self-imposed?) isolation.

[Niamh]

The first time I ever heard of Synge was when i was about 13. I'd gone into a pound shop in a place called carlow in ireland and there was this book for sale called 'Murder at the Abbey Theatre', and seeing as it was only £1 i bought it. It brought me straight in to the world os the Abbey theatre around the time of the Playboy riots. i was hooked! ever since then i've researched, and bought any books i could find on Synge and his life. (Which by the way most of the books are out of print!) At the moment i'm waiting on a copy Of Letters to Molly to arrive! Been trying to get my hands on that for about eight years.

I'm so obsessed with his life and works i did assignments on him for both my leaving cert history exam and Irish Social history exam in college.

In truth Synge was totally over shadowed by Yeats, but i think he was finally starting to come in to his own when he sadly died in 1909. He is apriciated today though, and is classed as one of the great Irish Writers where he belongs.

If you ever need to know anything about him Just Message me. I like to think i'm a bit of an expert on him.

He was a drifting silent man full of hidden passion and loved wild islands, because there, set out in the light of day, he saw what lay hidden in himself. -- W.B. Yeats

I think Jack Yeats used to say something similar about him. They were great friends and spent a lot of time together in the west of Ireland. Jack Yeats Has a Painting, i think its called connamara man or something like that and the guy posing in the picture looks like Synge.( Thats what i think anyway!) will see if i can get the picture. and post it.