J.M. Synge's Forms of Romance

I.M. Synge's Forms of Romance A.M. GIBBS Attempts to define the generic characteristics of Synge's works commonly produce a list of kinds reminiscent of that in Polonius's enthusiastic commendation of the Players in Hamlet, as "the best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral" (2.2.392-5). In his foreword to E.H. Mikhail's 1975 bibliography of Synge criticism, Robin Skelton provides a succinct summary of the seemingly contradictory and certainly widely differing classifications of Synge: "he has been viewed [Skelton writes] as primarily a satirist, as essentially a romantic, as a thoroughgoing realist, and as the most subtle of symbolists.'" Synge's work does indeed offer a banquet of kinds. We can locate in this profusion, as in the individual items oflanguage, "fully flavoured as a nut or apple,"2 in accordance with Synge's well-known recipe, part of the reason for that sense of creative opulence which the plays convey. In this discussion of romantic ingredients of Synge's work, it is not intended to establish generic hierarchies or to underestimate the importance ofother ingredients - farcical, ironic, grotesque, naturalistic, symbolic - to which critical study has been directed. I prefer to think of romance in the case of Synge (as in the late plays of Shakespeare) as providing a commodious vessel in which heterogeneity can flourish as the norm, and would suggest that the concept of dramatic romance perhaps provides one way of resolving the problem of genre in Synge. The main purpose of this essay is to examine some patterns of romantic idea and motif in Synge's work and to indicate their bearing on narrative structure in the plays. Synge's biography, now more fully available to us than before through the recent publication of Ann Saddlemyer's edition of the Collected Lelters3 presents a fascinating analogue to some of the romantic themes in Synge's work. I'd like to begin by briefly considering the major romance of Synge's own life, his love affair with Molly Allgood, as a prelude to the discussion of A.M. GIBBS some of the works. Synge met the young actress when she joined the Abbey Theatre Company in 1905. Early in 1906 Synge directed her in the part ofNora in his play In the Shadow of the Glen, and the two rapidly formed a love relationship which was to dominate, to the point ofobsession, the whole ofthe remainder of Synge's life until his death from Hodgldn's disease in 1909. A Times Literary Supplement reviewer of the letters referred to the two, a little unldndly, but with some justice, as "the besotted pair.,,4lt was just as well that Molly, like "the poets ofthe Dingle Bay" in The Playboy, had afine, fiery spirit when her temper was roused. Otherwise it is difficult to imagine how she could have withstood the pressure of Synge's intensely demanding love. The letters show him to have been an ecstatic, witty, exuberant, lyrical, and adoring lover. But he was also scolding, schoolmasterly, parental (Molly is often addressed as "my dearest child," and advice such as "I have come to the conclusion that you MUST [underlined four times] have warmer clothes before you go away" [Letters, vol. 2, p. 121], is frequent). Synge was also neurotically jealous. Misdemeanours, such as tiling the arm of fellow Abbey Theatre Company member, Dossy (Udolphus) Wright, when she had a sprained ankle, could elicit reproachful sermons lasting for several letters. Synge struggled unsuccessfully to achieve balance in such scolding: "This is d----Iy philosofical [sic] but it's a roundabout way of saying you must see Dossy hanged before you take his arm again" (Letters, vol. I, p. 180). Synge never ceased to be both attracted to and distressed by qualities of wildness and unpredictability in Molly - he called her "my little changeling" and a "madcap" - and in his view at least she seemed always to have remained just out ofreach of final, tranquil possession. In some part of his psyche, I suspect, Synge wanted her to remain a "phantom of delight." There are several aspects...