Technische Universität Carolo-Wilhelmina zu Braunschweig
Fachbereich für Geistes- und Erziehungswissenschaften
Englisches Seminar / Abteilung für Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft

National Identity in the Dramatic Works of
Yeats, Synge and O’Casey

Magisterarbeit zur Erlangung des Magistergrades (M.A.)

vorgelegt von: Inken Schulze

“There is no great literature without nationality,
no great nationality without literature”
(John O’Leary)

Contents

1. Introduction ... 5

1.1 The perception of Ireland abroad and within the country ... 5
1.2 Resistance: a national movement in Ireland ... 7
1.3 Decisive dramatists ... 9

2. Influential groups/persons prior to the Irish Literary Revival ... 13

2.1 Young Ireland ... 13
2.2 Standish O’Grady’s History of Ireland: Heroic Period ... 13
2.3 Charles Steward Parnell ─ a political precursor of the Irish Revival ... 14

3. The Irish Revival – the development of a cultural revolution ... 16

3.1 The Gaelic Athletic Association ... 17
3.2 The Gaelic League as promoter of the Irish language ... 18
3.3 ‘Inghinidhe na hÉireann’ ─ An Irish feminist movement ... 21

4. Yeats and the literary movement in Dublin ... 23

4.1 The Irish Literary Theatre and the establishment of the Abbey Theatre ... 26
4.2 Controversies: double reading of Irishness ... 32

5. The first national dramatic writings of the Irish Literary Theatre ... 35

5.1 Cathleen ─ the traditional female personification of Ireland ... 35

5.2 The Countess Cathleen (1899) ... 37
5.2.1 The peasants as imperfect Irish people ... 39
5.2.2 Yeats’s new, unconventional mode of writing ... 43
5.2.3 ‘Selling one’s soul’ in the literature and historical context of Ireland ... 44
5.2.4 Devils in disguise: merchants and colonisers ... 46
5.2.5 The key role of the countess ... 48

5.3 Cathleen Ni Houlihan (1902) ... 52
5.3.1 The play’s historical implication ... 53
5.3.2 Cathleen Ni Houlihan as the missionary of Irish patriotism ... 55
5.3.3 Yeats’s nationalistic message beyond the theatre ... 58

6. John Millington Synge, the enfant terrible of the Abbey ... 62

6.1 The Playboy of the Western World (1907) ... 65
6.1.1 The celebrated parricide ... 68
6.1.2 Christy, the anti-hero ... 71
6.1.3 Pegeen, the embodiment of Irish womanhood ... 75
6.1.4 The audience who performed the play ... 78
6.1.5 The Playboy in line with Cathleen Ni Houlihan? ... 79

7. Sean O’Casey, the post-war playwright ... 80

7.1 Juno and the Paycock (1924) ... 81
7.2 The male ‘paycock’ in opposition to the female goddess ... 83
7.3 O’Casey’s plea for humanity ... 87
7.4 Juno, the heroine of the domestic world ... 90

8. Conclusion: “A nation and its theatre are born out of conflict” ... 93

9. Appendix: Map of Ireland ... 97

10. Works cited and consulted ... 98

11. List of illustrations ... 102

1. Introduction

Although the high age of imperialism is thought to have started in the late 1870s, this does not hold true for English-speaking areas (cf. Said 1993, 220). Ireland, having been colonised by the English well over seven hundred years before, is an exception as England’s oldest colony. As early as the 1150s, Ireland was ceded to Henry II of England and was eventually settled by him in 1171 (cf. ibid). From then on, the colonisers started “quite consciously to modernize, develop, instruct, and civilize” (ibid, 223) the Irish, since imperialism after all was an educational movement. On account of this ‘teaching’, all native features of the Irish, above all their Celtic history, had to give way to the colonisers’ equivalents. As a consequence, Ireland’s national identity also suffered immeasurably in the course of time as the Irish themselves did.

The alien power “affected the details and not just the large outlines of [Irish] life” (ibid, 221), reflected in various fields which had been anglicised. Concerning the Irish language, Gaelic, which used to be Ireland’s mother tongue, it had been increasingly replaced by English since the nineteenth century. Similarly, the ancient Gaelic culture, its traditions and national Irish literature were displaced as well. There was hardly any aspect left which still expressed truly Irish thoughts and ideas, to say nothing of an independent identity of Ireland.

This thesis will focus on the cultural struggle for a reawakening of the Irish consciousness. In particular, three key writers of the Irish Literary Revival at the end of the nineteenth-century ─ William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), John Millington Synge (1871-1909) and Sean O’Casey (1880-1964) ─ are at the centre of attention. They initiated a literary movement to re-establish an Irish national identity within Ireland and abroad. During this struggle the dramatists had to overcome various prejudices against the Irish, which will be briefly presented in the following before I will discuss the Irish Literary Revival and the three writers.

1.1 The perception of Ireland abroad and within the country

Due to England’s dominant position as the coloniser, the Irish were generally perceived as weak and uncivilised. England was regarded as the embodiment of authority and stood in striking contrast to the negative picture of Ireland. Two issues emphasised this condition even more, one being Ireland’s perception as “the bestial, feminine other, or the opposite of the English norm of civilised masculinity […]” (Suess 2003, 65), the other the existence of the Stage Irishman in English and Irish theatres.

For centuries Ireland has been characterised by British imperialists and Irish nationalists as female: “she is Hibernia, Eire, Erin, Mother Ireland, the Poor Old Woman, the Shan Van Vocht, Cathleen ni [sic] Houlihan, the Dark Rosaleen” (Innes 1993, 2). While Irish nationalists at the end of the nineteenth century focused on positive aspects of this female presentation, the English perceived Ireland in negative terms. The colonisers associated femininity with passivity, weakness and emotion and applied this view to Ireland and the Irish. Contrary to Ireland, England echoed masculinity. In the Victorian and Edwardian Age, masculinity not only used to represent patriarchal principles, but, in addition, it was the ruling force concerning scientific and rational theories of “natural” dominance (cf. Suess 2003, 11). The English made use of that picture by claiming to be “[…] the world’s primary movers and shakers” representing “strength, aggression, authority, and rationality” (ibid). As a consequence, this typical view was also taken up by essayists in order to comment on the gender issue, which was closely connected to power. Authors such as Matthew Arnold or Ernest Renan drew up a comparison between England and Ireland in their writings, which was based on the gender-power relations. The image of Ireland as exclusively female offered an explanation for the country’s deficiency and dependence on the male England. Thus, society succeeded in turning Ireland’s femininity into a scapegoat: “Using science and reason to justify the sovereignty of masculinity (and Englishness), it demonised femininity (and Irishness) as an enemy to progress while bolstering itself“ (ibid). Obviously, the images of masculine England versus feminine Ireland, which soon reached other areas such as political economics, medicine and popular literature, was enough to prove that Ireland got what it deserved in the eyes of society. Being associated with a woman, Ireland was meant to lead a dependent life oppressed by the male without a voice of its own to protest against the country’s condition.

Another negative stereotype of the Irish at that time was embodied in the figure of the Stage Irishman. It began to appear regularly in English theatres in the eighteenth century and existed throughout the nineteenth century, until the Irish Literary Theatre tried to put an end to this humorous depiction of the Irish. The popular drama used the Stage Irishman to portray Irish men and women as buffoons, i.e. ridiculous comic figures. Being presented as lazy, crafty and drunken on stage, the Irish again fell victim to the English. It is no surprise that the femininity that was attributed to Ireland in general also appeared on stage again. The Irish were depicted as behaving in an emotional and childlike way. On the whole, they were seen as mere comic figures the audience was supposed to and actually did make fun of in public.

According to Fitz-Simon, there were two categories of the Stage Irishman: the buffoon and the Irish braggart. The latter was likely to be a soldier or ex-soldier, who showed off by claiming to have seen the whole world while actually never having left his own country (cf. Fitz-Simon 1983, 94). Naturally, in the end the braggart on stage provoked laughter in the theatres as well. In addition, the Stage Irishman was presented as a peasant, as ‘Paddy with his Pig’, who is well-known as the existent Irish stereotype. Since Ireland was an almost entirely rural society, Irish people were reduced to being poor peasants. This is illustrated in the following quotation: “[…] there dance[d] clumsily in his hob-nailed boots and his knee breeches and his swallow-tailed coat, the red-nosed, potato-faced figure of the stage Irishman“ (MacAnna in O’Driscoll 1971, 91).

With these stereotypes of the Irishman the English succeeded in making fun of Ireland and the inhabitants. The picture of the Stage Irishman achieved a wide distribution through the theatres and newspapers. This helped to strengthen the prestigious image of the English while Ireland was commonly regarded as inferior and dim-witted. The ridiculed figure of the Stage Irishman existed not only on English and American stages, but even on Irish stages in the nineteenth century. Irish dramatists “[…] offered an exaggerated and unrealistically simple view of Ireland […]” (Hogan/Kilroy 1975, 17). Yet, this unlikely and unfair portrait was not perceived as extraordinary at all. Even the Irish audience could laugh at their own ridiculous depiction.

1.2 Resistance: a national movement in Ireland

This attitude of the Irish changed in the course of time. While the superiority of the English in any area of Irish life increased, the resistance in Ireland mounted as well. According to Said, in general, much of the resistance to imperialism was performed in the context of nationalism, a term which for him “identif[ies] the mobilizing force that coalesced into resistance against an alien and occupying empire on the part of peoples possessing a common history, religion, and language” (Said 1993, 223).

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