Modern Irish Drama: W. B. Yeats to Marina Carr, Second Edition

Preface

IX Preface T H E G E N E S I S OF T H I S BO OK resulted from my teaching modern Irish drama at Syracuse University and at Trinity College, Dublin, for many summers under the auspices of the Syracuse University Ireland Program. In teaching these courses, I found that excellent play anthologies were available, but that there was no up-to-date handbook in print that satisfactorily provided the information necessary to support the course and help students understand the background to modern Irish drama and the scope of this great, ongoing artistic, cultural, and intellectual achievement of which the Irish people and Irish Americans are so justifiably proud. I believe students of modern Irish drama as well as that part of the general reading public in the English-speaking world who have come to enjoy the fine plays of Brian Friel, Frank McGuinness, Marina Carr, Sebastian Barry, Martin McDonagh, Conor McPherson , and other Irish playwrights at work today want and need to know certain aspects of Irish history, especially from the early years of the twentieth century until now. Thus, I discuss the significance of the Irish Literary Revival, the story of the Irish National Theatre Society—which produced plays at the theater affectionately known as the Abbey, one of the great national theaters in the Western world—the general history of Irish drama and theater, and the achievements of the most significant Irish dramatists of the twentieth century. The volume also introduces the outstanding Irish plays of the modern and contemporary period. ...