O'Casey, Sean. (1880 - 1964).
L i f e
- born John Casey, a poor Protestant Dubliner by birth
W o r k
- the last major early 20th century Irish dramatist to be associated with the Dublin Abbey Theatre
- his plays based on his own experience of the sounds, rhetoric, prejudices, frustrations, and manners of tenement dwellers of the Dublin slums
- avoids romanticising Ireland, fantasising about its past or its bloody present, or poeticising the vigorously rhythmical language of the Dublin poor
- avoids apologizing the troubles of Ireland, or taking sides with its oppressor x its supposed liberators
- portrays poor Dubliners caught up in a struggle disrupting their lives, uncomprehending, and unwillingly suffering for somebody’s else cause
- produced tragedies x but: relieved by a wit as instinctive as irreverent
D u b l i n D r a m a :
The Shadow of a Gunman (1923):
< influenced by John Millington Synge’s Playboy of the Western World
- concerned with the theme of deception and self-deception
- set in a tenement back room, in the time of the ‘Black and Tan’ repression (1920)
Juno and the Paycock (1924):
- set in a single tenement room in the time of the Irish Civil War (1922 - 1923)
- concerned with a series of family tragedies, both caused by the War and arising independently from it
The Plough and the Stars (1926):
- set in/around the rooms of an old tenement house, in the time shortly before and during the Easter Rising
- the tenement both partially detached from the political struggle x bound up in its confusions, injustices, and bloody accidents
> the play was misinterpreted as anti-nationalist and provoked riots
L o n d o n D r a m a :
- after moving to England (1926): marked by awkwardness and socialist rhetoric
The Silver Tassie (1928):
- an experimental ‘Tragi-Comedy’ commenting on the WW I
- rejected by the Abbey Theatre, performed in a London theatre
Cock-a-Doodle Dandy (1949) and The Bishop’s Bonfire (1955):
- anti-clerical and anti-capitalist analyses of modern Ireland
Basics
(Photo: Britannica).
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Author
Born John Casey. Aka Sean O'Casey. (1880 - 1964). Irish. -
Work
Playwright. Author of The Plough and the Stars (1926). -
Genre
Political and social drama.
Literature
Abrams, Meyer Howard, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993.
Barnard, Robert. Stručné dějiny anglické literatury. Praha: Brána, 1997.
Baugh, Albert C. ed. A Literary History of England. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1967.
Coote, Stephen. The Penguin Short History of English Literature. London: Penguin, 1993.
Sampson, George. The Concise Cambridge History of English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1946.
Sanders, Andrew. The Short Oxford History of English Literature. New York: Clarendon Press, 1994.
Quote
"Chiselurs don't care a damn now about their parents, they're bringin' their fathers' grey hairs down with sorra to the grave, an' laughin' at it, laughin' at it. Ah, I suppose it's just the same everywhere -- the whole worl's in a state o' chassis!"
From Juno and the Paycock (1924).