Irish Dramatists

S. Fling, J. M. Kennedy, Anthony Ludovici, and the inevitable T. E. Huhne, preceding the Pound chapters. Although not a new idea, it may also be of some value to stress the continuities between poetry and painting from the 1880s through Pound. Also of value although again not new may be Robinson's treatment of the "esthetic politics" of the Edwardian period, though his treatment appears to be innocent of the work of John Harrison, William Chace, Fredric Jameson, and some others. Informative about numerous late-Victorian and early modem figures, Symbol to Vortex is nevertheless a book of fits and starts which wiU not have much effect on how we think about the emergence of modernist from Victorian esthetics. Patrick BrantUnger Indiana University 8. IRISH DRAMATISTS Robert Hogan. "Since O'Casey" and Other Essays on Irish Drama. Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble, 1983. $28.50 There are some very good things about Hogan's book, particularly for scholars interested in Irish literature of the transition period, but the book's reasoning and careless construction will certainly alienate many readers. The best thing about "Since O'Casey" and Other Essays is the scholarly impetus it provides. Many of the essays touch on figures rarely treated in studies of this period in Irish hterature, and Hogan's familiarity with these figures is continuaUy impressive. Also, the reader has a continual sense of Hogan's honesty. Hogan's long dedication to the period and the hterature does not at aU bhnd him to their defects. One of Hogan's errors is simply taking on too much. In the early chapters he devotes much space to such neglected writers as W. J. Lawrence, George Fitzmaurice and Seumas O'Kelly. Yet this shm volume covers a period of time from roughly 1890 to the present, and includes chapters on Denis Johnston and Samuel Beckett. This far too ambitious prospectus leads Hogan to make some poor judgments (the chapter on Beckett is a good example). WhUe the first essay, "Yeats Creates a Critic," is a fascinating study of W. J. Lawrence, Hogan appears to argue against himself. His point-one far too often neglected-is that Yeats's arrogance and absurdity senously harmed the Abbey Theatre. His other point is that Yeats's high-handed manner of running the Abbey impelled Lawrence to be a better scholar than he would otherwise have been. But Hogan offers no proof whatever that this second thesis is tme. And the essay closes with the statement, "One thing we do know is that Lawrence would have been a better critic and perhaps the Irish drama itself would have been somewhat better had he and Yeats been friends." The critical appendix, giving reviews by Lawrence, is a good idea, but it is much too short to provide a fair sample of Lawrence's best work. Again, though, one must note Hogan's honesty: whüe Lawrence's scholarship is tremendously important to readers interested in this period, Hogan admits that 105 Lawrence was not a very good writer or critic. And in the essays dealing with Synge and his influence the reader feels he is dealing with a forthright scholar. Hogan has written at length on Synge, but he admits, "Synge has become part of the revered past. His plays are now historical dramas because the world that they mirror has largely disappeared." So has Chekhov's world, Hogan concedes, and tacitly admits in all kinds of ways the much greater status of the latter playwright. Besides analyzing Synge's language much more thoroughly than is usually the case, Hogan makes another very effective point: that Synge really did not have much influence on subsequent developments in the theatre (except in Ireland), for example. And even much of the grotesquerie and irreverence employed by later Irish playwrights cannot be attributed to Synge. Oppression, rebellion, poverty and famine demand a grotesquely comic approach, Hogan argues. And he substantiates his point that a very idiosyncratic use of language is typical of all of the most individual of Irish playwrights. Again, though, Hogan shows a tendency to argue against himself. In the third section of the essay "The Influence of Synge Hogan deals with the...