bruce bigley - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by bruce bigley
Modern Drama, 1977
LET ME BEGIN with a few observations on John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western Wo... more LET ME BEGIN with a few observations on John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World and its critical acceptance. It seems safe to assert that The Playboy is Synge's best play; although some prefer Riders to the Sea, they will agree that The Playboy is more characteristic and that it is the best full-length play. The Playboy is also one of the classics of modern British theater, probably the most anthologized modern full-length play written in English. More arguably, it is the finest play written in English in a couple of centuries. Hence we may say that it is highly regarded, it has worn well, il is worth study and rereading, and it has as unanimous a critical acclaim as one is likely to find in a twentieth century author. Yet there is little agreement on how to read the play or react to its title character. Is he a hero, a buffoon, a fraud, a Christ figure , a mock Christ, a Promethean figure, a demonic figure, an Oedipal figure, the last hero of the decadent West? Is he even the protagonist? And how are we to react to the peculiar ethics of the play: is parricide so good a thing as it seems to be? There is as little agreement critically about the genre of the play. Is it comedy, as Synge subtitles it; an extravaganza, as he called it in an unguarded moment; a comedy with an anticlimactic ending; tragicomedy; a comedy with a tragic ending (comitragedy?)? ' Northrop Frye avoids classifying it in the A natomy, although he does remark elsewhere that Christy is a mutation of the miles gloriosus;' but his disciples Foulke and Smith in The Anatomy of Literature touch all of Frye's mythoi by describing it in the following
all depends on where one begins. In Scandinavia Ibsen's recognition began with Kongs-emnerne ... more all depends on where one begins. In Scandinavia Ibsen's recognition began with Kongs-emnerne and the even greater success of Brand; consequently Norwegians were less likely to overlook the poet in the social plays that followed. But in the English-speaking world Ibsen's recognition began with Et dukkehjem and Gengangere ; the subsequent plays were forced into the tendential form Ibsenites saw in these "thesis" plays. No wonder Archer perceived premonitions of mental collapse in Nar vi d0de vâgner.1 No wonder it took Shaw so long to expand The Quintessence of Ibsenism to include the last four plays, in which he was forced reluctantly to conclude that "Ibsen now lays down the completed task of warning the world against its idols and anti-idols, and passes into the shadow of death, or rather into the splendor of his sunset glory. . . ."2 We now see that the thesis plays, if that is what Et dukkehjem and Gengangere are, are an aberration, welcome or not, in t...
Modern Drama, 1977
LET ME BEGIN with a few observations on John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western Wo... more LET ME BEGIN with a few observations on John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World and its critical acceptance. It seems safe to assert that The Playboy is Synge's best play; although some prefer Riders to the Sea, they will agree that The Playboy is more characteristic and that it is the best full-length play. The Playboy is also one of the classics of modern British theater, probably the most anthologized modern full-length play written in English. More arguably, it is the finest play written in English in a couple of centuries. Hence we may say that it is highly regarded, it has worn well, it is worth study and rereading, and it has as unanimous a critical acclaim as one is likely to find in a twentieth century author.
Modern Drama, 1977
LET ME BEGIN with a few observations on John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western Wo... more LET ME BEGIN with a few observations on John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World and its critical acceptance. It seems safe to assert that The Playboy is Synge's best play; although some prefer Riders to the Sea, they will agree that The Playboy is more characteristic and that it is the best full-length play. The Playboy is also one of the classics of modern British theater, probably the most anthologized modern full-length play written in English. More arguably, it is the finest play written in English in a couple of centuries. Hence we may say that it is highly regarded, it has worn well, il is worth study and rereading, and it has as unanimous a critical acclaim as one is likely to find in a twentieth century author. Yet there is little agreement on how to read the play or react to its title character. Is he a hero, a buffoon, a fraud, a Christ figure , a mock Christ, a Promethean figure, a demonic figure, an Oedipal figure, the last hero of the decadent West? Is he even the protagonist? And how are we to react to the peculiar ethics of the play: is parricide so good a thing as it seems to be? There is as little agreement critically about the genre of the play. Is it comedy, as Synge subtitles it; an extravaganza, as he called it in an unguarded moment; a comedy with an anticlimactic ending; tragicomedy; a comedy with a tragic ending (comitragedy?)? ' Northrop Frye avoids classifying it in the A natomy, although he does remark elsewhere that Christy is a mutation of the miles gloriosus;' but his disciples Foulke and Smith in The Anatomy of Literature touch all of Frye's mythoi by describing it in the following
all depends on where one begins. In Scandinavia Ibsen's recognition began with Kongs-emnerne ... more all depends on where one begins. In Scandinavia Ibsen's recognition began with Kongs-emnerne and the even greater success of Brand; consequently Norwegians were less likely to overlook the poet in the social plays that followed. But in the English-speaking world Ibsen's recognition began with Et dukkehjem and Gengangere ; the subsequent plays were forced into the tendential form Ibsenites saw in these "thesis" plays. No wonder Archer perceived premonitions of mental collapse in Nar vi d0de vâgner.1 No wonder it took Shaw so long to expand The Quintessence of Ibsenism to include the last four plays, in which he was forced reluctantly to conclude that "Ibsen now lays down the completed task of warning the world against its idols and anti-idols, and passes into the shadow of death, or rather into the splendor of his sunset glory. . . ."2 We now see that the thesis plays, if that is what Et dukkehjem and Gengangere are, are an aberration, welcome or not, in t...
Modern Drama, 1977
LET ME BEGIN with a few observations on John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western Wo... more LET ME BEGIN with a few observations on John Millington Synge's The Playboy of the Western World and its critical acceptance. It seems safe to assert that The Playboy is Synge's best play; although some prefer Riders to the Sea, they will agree that The Playboy is more characteristic and that it is the best full-length play. The Playboy is also one of the classics of modern British theater, probably the most anthologized modern full-length play written in English. More arguably, it is the finest play written in English in a couple of centuries. Hence we may say that it is highly regarded, it has worn well, it is worth study and rereading, and it has as unanimous a critical acclaim as one is likely to find in a twentieth century author.