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better know itself.The intention was rather to discover some easy way, in which strange workings of that consciousness might entertainingly be exhibited to alien eyes.’4 When a writer is faced, as the writer in ireland invariably is faced, with a community which reads very little, and even when it does read, is prepared to have its reading material prescribed because of qualities entirely outside the realms of literary art, what else may he do but appeal to alien eyes and an alien intelligence? irish writers are faced with a triple kind of censorship: first, the censorship of those who do not read at all; second, the ‘reserved list’ of Library Committees; and finally, the Statutory Censorship Board.5 The worst of these, of course, is the first, as it is the absence of a large reading public that compels irish writers to seek readers abroad.The ‘reserved List’ in irish public libraries also would be found enlightening, and one irish author has suffered under the Censorship Board. if we compel our writers to seek their readers in other lands, Mr. Corkery ought not to complain then that they are merely ‘provincial.’ in order that irish literature may be irish, apparently, it will be necessary to have ‘a succession of nationalistic movements, rising and falling, each dissolving into a period of reaction, of provincialism, yet each, for all that, leaving the nation a little more sturdy, a little more normal, a little less provincial than before.’6 to our mind it would seem that the real ‘provincial’ in this matter is Mr. Corkery himself: Synge’s art made his appeal universal, and Mr. Corkery may be thanked for having ranged him with those who exhibited his countrymen entertainingly to alien eyes. * * * Synge and irish Life1 Surprise is necessarily short-lived, and the plays of Synge no longer affect us with the breathlessness of novelty. a slight reaction against the exuberance and wild colouring of his imagination set in shortly after his death. But the limitations of his strange genius have been recognised, and there has been no serious questioning of his individual place as a dramatist. even his position in the ireland of his day can be estimated, and the violent controversies which centred around his work are now almost a memory.The partisans who saw in his work either a travesty of irish peasant life or an Part Four. Contemporary Reception 193 exact copy of island manners and customs: all these excitable disputants have disappeared like the Kilkenny cats through the excess of their own zeal. time has justified the claims of art; and The Playboy of the Western World, once the trailing coat-tail of belligerency, is now accepted with affection and delight by popular irish audiences. professor Corkery, however, believes that there are still prevailing misconceptions which must be cleared; and his book is not only a serious critical estimate of Synge’s work but an interesting attempt to show how far, measured by the standard of roman Catholic orthodoxy, Synge failed to reflect the native mind of ireland.The author is well-qualified to present what must appear to be a justifiable national grievance. He is professor of english Literature at university College, Cork. His own stories and plays reveal the quiet and devotional strain in irish provincial life. furthermore, professor Corkery is an authority on certain phases of Gaelic poetry. unfortunately for the sake of critical peace, professor Corkery opens his book with a vigorous attack on the whole modern anglo-irish school. in these poets and playwrights he sees the natural successors to Lover, Lever and the ex-Jesuit father prout. The leaders of the Celtic twilight school spring from an ascendancy class: they are divided by birth and education, by political and religious differences, from the majority of the irish nation.Their literary market had been an alien one, and they have amused or surprised the world at the expense of the irish majority.The author of The Playboy might well seem the worst of the batch, for his work was the centre of controversy, the very bone of contention. paradoxically enough, professor Corkery singles out Synge as the great exception from his rule of condemnation. to some this might seem but another instance of the irish spirit of contradictoriness: in reality, professor Corkery is but showing that consistent logicality which has so often given rise to irish ‘bulls.’His reasons are clear and succinct.‘to show how...

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