Synge << sihng >>, John Millington (1871-1909), was an Irish dramatist who portrayed the rugged life of Irish peasants of the 1800’s. Most of his plays are written in a vigorous poetic language based on folk speech.
Synge had a particular genius for plays having both tragic and comic elements. Like other Irish writers of his time, he dealt imaginatively with heroism and the apparent gap between the real and the ideal. This gap forms the theme of In the Shadow of the Glen (1903), The Well of the Saints (1905), and The Playboy of the Western World (1907), his masterpiece. Synge wrote two tragedies, Riders to the Sea (1904), and Deirdre of the Sorrows (first performed in 1910, after his death). In both plays, heroism is tied to the central character’s confrontation with mortality.
Synge was born on April 16, 1871, near Rathfarnham, a suburb of Dublin. From 1898 to 1902, he spent periods of time on the Aran Islands off the western coast of Ireland, which provided the material for his plays. He died on March 24, 1909.
