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University Microfilms Internationa] 12 8 1^ 1.0 m - L- 1 ^ 2.2 ^ |36 no 1 2 .0 II 18 11.25 1.4 1.6 MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART NATIONAL BUREAU OF STANDARDS STANDARD REFERENCE MATERIAL 1010a (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No 2| University Microfilms Inc. 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 INFORMATION TO USERS This reproduction was made from a copy of a manuscript sent to us for publication and microfilming. While the most advanced technology has been used to pho tograph and reproduce this manuscript, the quality of the reproduction is heavily dependent upon the quality of the material submitted. Pages in any manuscript may have indistinct print. In all cases the best available copy has been filmed. The following explanation of techniques is provided to help clarify notations which may appear on this reproduction. 1. Manuscripts may not always be complete. When it is not possible to obtain missing pages, a note appears to indicate this. 2. When copyrighted materials are removed from the manuscript, a note ap pears to indicate this. 3. Oversize materials (maps, drawings, and charts) are photographed by sec tioning the original, beginning at the upper left hand comer and continu ing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each oversize page is also filmed as one exposure and is available, for an additional charge, as a standard 35mm slide or in black and white paper format.* 4. Most photographs reproduce acceptably on positive microfilm or micro fiche but lack clarity on xerographic copies made from the microfilm. For an additional charge, all photographs are available in black and white standard 35mm slide format.* *For more information about black and white slides or enlarged paper reproductions, please contact the Dissertations Customer Services Department. IMMBraity M krofihns International 8602994 Fleming, Deborah Diane THE IRISH PEASANT IN THE WORK OF W. B. YEATS AND J. M. SYNGE The Ohio State University Ph.D. 1985 University Microfilms International 300 N. Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, Ml 48106 Copyright 1985 by Fleming, Deborah Diane All Rights Reserved The Irish Peasant in the Work of W. B. Yeats and J. M. Synge Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University by Deborah Diane Fleming, B .A., B .S . , M .A . * * * * * The Ohio State University 1985 Reading Committee: Approved by Professor Morris Beja, Advisor Professor John Muste Professor John C. Messenger A dvisor Department of English Copyright by Deborah Fleming 1985 To Ed i i i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Professor Morris Beja, Professor John Muste, and Professor John C. Messenger for their advice and help with my research and in preparing this manuscript. iv VITA May 29. 195° .... Born - Steubenville, Ohio 1972 ....................................... B.A., Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1976 ....................................... M.A., Ohio State University 1977 ....................................... B.S., Ohio State University 1981-1985 ...................... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of English, Ohio State University LITERARY CRITICISM "George Orwell and His Generation: Art and Politico Purpose." Papers in Comparative Studies 4 ( 1 9 8 5): 3^-43- "George Orwell's Essay on W. B. Yeats." Eire-Ireland 19.4 (Winter 1984): 141-7. FIELDS OF STUDY Modern British and American Literature Nineteenth-Century British Literature English Renaissance Literature Creative Writing v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page VITA .................................................................................................................................................i i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................................ i i l INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1 . Irish Peasants and Anglo-Irish W riters................................6 2. The Peasant as Noble S a v a g e.........................................................32 J. Natural and Supernatural............................................................... 71 The Peasant and Love ......................................................................... 116 5. The Peasant as Wanderer, Hermit, Seer, Prophet 15^ 6. The Peasant as A rtist ......................................................................179 CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................214 NOTES........................................................................................................................................ 218 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................................... 227 Introduct ion An Linder standing of the Irish or Celtic Renaissance of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century necessi tates a study of the literature written about Irish peasants, for one central idea of the Renaissance was the revivication of Irish culture. In their very different ways, W. B. Yeats and J. M. Synge, the two most important figures of the Irish Literary Revival, which can be seen as part of the larger Irish Renaissance, were engaged in this revivication. Because of their literary importance, I have chosen to look exclusively at their works rather than undertake a more comprehensive study of other noted writers of the Revival who also wrote about peasants--among them Padraic Colum, Lady Gregory, and Douglas Hyde. Yeats’s peasant poems and Synge's plays, as well as their extensive prose works, were instrumental in the creation of a new literature for Ireland written in English. The literary treatment of the peasant played a crucial and controversial role in the emerging sense of Irish national consciousness in the early twentieth century. One question which must be asked is whether Yeats and Synge, who were both middle-class Protestants, were capable of presenting an accurate picture of peasant life. Yeats wrote in his Autobiography that his happiest childhood days had been spent in Sligo, yet later in his life, his visits to the west of Ireland were brief when compared with his time spent in London and Dublin. Synge loved to walk the roads and fields of Ireland's remote counties and talk with the peasants, yet he lived during most of his adult life in Dublin and Paris. Synge wanted to record the rhythms of the peasants' spoken language and to present dramatically their courage and spirit. Yeats wanted to create new myths for Ireland and to develop an Irish litera ture which would earn the respect of the world. Another question to be considered is whether those who live in close contact with nature and who earn their living by working on the land are necessarily more virtuous and clear-sighted, and less materialistic, than those who live in towns and cities. Does their folklore endow the country people with greater insight than even scholars may acquire through disciplined study? The belief that in past ages people were nobler, stronger, more virtuous, and more civilized than the present is an important literary theme often associated with ideas about the virtue of country people's traditional way of life. Yeats and Synge would remind us that if the peasants' culture represented a mystical and virtuous tradition, that culture too has suffered from the degradation of modern times. And yet, 3 even though their way of life is threatened by the outside world, the country people display courage and the ability t o endure. Yeats's and Synge's different but complementary ways of looking at Irish peasants helped to establish a new sense of cultural and linguistic identity in Ireland by trans forming Irish folklore into art and by capturing the rhythms of the Anglo-Irish dialect. Synge was concerned with the peasants of his time, especially those he met in Wicklow, Kerry, and Connemara and on the Aran Islands. Yeats saw the peasants primarily as inheritors of Celtic tradition. Their folklore and legends were essential for the develop ment of a national literature. Different as they were, the motives of these two writers overlap. Synge employs the peasant idiom in Deirdre of the Sorrows, which is drawn from Irish legend, because he saw the peasants as the descendants of the ancient Celts. Yeats as well as Synge celebrated what he saw as the robustness and spirit of the country people. Both realized the literary potential of the peasant as archetype or poetic mask. In this study I have examined Synge ’ s six major plays and selections from his prose works on peasant life and culture and some of his writings, both published and unpublished, on art. I have included poems from all periods in Yeats's canon, and looked at passages from his many essays about Irish folklore and the necessity of the artist to be familiar with the folk culture and ancient literature of his own country. I have excluded Yeats's plays because of their essentially aristocratic viewpoint and Yeats's development of his dramatic characters into types rather than individuals. A longer study of the image of the Irish peasant in Yeats's work might include The Countess Cathleen (1892), Land of Heart's Desire (189^) Cathleen Ni Houlihan and Where There is Nothing (1902), The Pot of Broth ( 190^), The Unicorn from the Stars (I 9O8 ) The Hour-Glass (191^), A Full Moon in March (1935). and Purgatory (1939).

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