The Project Gutenberg EBook of Riders to the Sea, by J. M. Synge

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Title: Riders to the Sea

Author: J. M. Synge

Release Date: August 3, 2008 [EBook #994]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Judith Boss

RIDERS TO THE SEA

A PLAY IN ONE ACT

By J. M. Synge

INTRODUCTION

It must have been on Synge's second visit to the Aran Islands that he
had the experience out of which was wrought what many believe to be his
greatest play. The scene of "Riders to the Sea" is laid in a cottage
on Inishmaan, the middle and most interesting island of the Aran group.
While Synge was on Inishmaan, the story came to him of a man whose body
had been washed up on the far away coast of Donegal, and who, by reason
of certain peculiarities of dress, was suspected to be from the island.
In due course, he was recognised as a native of Inishmaan, in exactly
the manner described in the play, and perhaps one of the most poignantly
vivid passages in Synge's book on "The Aran Islands" relates the
incident of his burial.

The other element in the story which Synge introduces into the play is
equally true. Many tales of "second sight" are to be heard among Celtic
races. In fact, they are so common as to arouse little or no wonder in
the minds of the people. It is just such a tale, which there seems no
valid reason for doubting, that Synge heard, and that gave the title,
"Riders to the Sea", to his play.

It is the dramatist's high distinction that he has simply taken the
materials which lay ready to his hand, and by the power of sympathy
woven them, with little modification, into a tragedy which, for dramatic
irony and noble pity, has no equal among its contemporaries. Great
tragedy, it is frequently claimed with some show of justice, has
perforce departed with the advance of modern life and its complicated
tangle of interests and creature comforts. A highly developed
civilisation, with its attendant specialisation of culture, tends ever
to lose sight of those elemental forces, those primal emotions, naked to
wind and sky, which are the stuff from which great drama is wrought b