Culture and Society of Ireland - IRCS 101 & 102- Resource Guide

“Let us learn construction from the masters and language from ourselves,” William Butler Yeats, one of the founders of the Abbey Theatre, advised aspiring playwrights. Indeed, an aptitude for language and humor was a distinctive feature of drama written by Irish authors, but not until the establishment of the Abbey Theatre at the beginning of the twentieth century was it possible for Irish playwrights to draw on indigenous precedents, distinct from those supplied by England’s literary tradition.

Irish literature falls into two distinct categories. Written in the Irish language, the first category includes bardic poems and Celtic sagas. The second category, Irish literature written in English, includes what is often called Anglo-Irish literature because it was created by Protestants of English extraction. This phenomenon can be explained by England’s historical colonization of Ireland and the acceptance of Irish writers within the British literary tradition.

It is an undisputed fact of literary history that, whereas British writers and readers have always favored the novel over the short story, just the opposite has been the case for their Irish neighbors. Irish short-story writer Frank O’Connor has attributed this distinction to differences between national attitudes toward society.

Critical information from World Literature and Its Time.

More e-books about Irish literature.

While Brendan Behan's literary reputation rests on his dramatic works, The Quare Fellow (produced 1954, published 1956) and The Hostage (1958), both of which were substantial international successes, the bulk of his writing consists of various forms of autobiography.

In a century of Irish dramatic genius extraordinary in number and reputation of playwrights and breadth of theatrical animus and style, Friel’s career is pantheon-class. Friel’s work is Irish in the most traditional, definitive way, in its preoccupation with history.

Joyce's works reflected his life, his times, and his varied cultures both in their themes and in their aesthetic aims and development.

John B. Keane was the most popular and arguably the outstanding Irish playwright of the second half of the 20th century. He chronicled with affection and uncanny insight the isolated rural society of his early life that was to be swept away by television and improved communications from the 1960s onwards.

1856–1950, Irish playwright and critic. He revolutionized the Victorian stage, then dominated by artificial melodramas, by presenting vigorous dramas of ideas. The lengthy prefaces to Shaw's plays reveal his mastery of English prose. In 1925 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Bram Stoker was the author of Dracula, the key work in the development of the modern literary myth of the vampire.

1667–1745, English author, b. Dublin. He is widely recognized as one of the greatest satirists in the English language.

Poet, short story writer, editor, reviewer, novelist, critic, and playwright: no one of his day aspired to be more versatile than did Wilde, nor more intent on living his art.

Poet and dramatist, W.B.Yeats was born of Protestant Anglo-Irish parents. His early childhood spent in the midst of fantastic beauty of Siligocountryside in the Western Ireland, his maternal uncle's place, had a potent influence on his poetry, particularly his early poetries. This also led to his interest in Irish mythology and legendary past as well as in Irish folk-tales.