John Millington Synge (1871–1909) was a seminal Irish playwright, poet, and prose writer, best known for his role in the Irish Literary Revival and his association with the Abbey Theatre. Born in Dublin into an Anglo-Irish Protestant family, Synge was initially drawn to music but later turned to literature underContinue Reading
RIDERS TO THE SEAa play in one-actby John Millington Synge The following one-act play is reprinted from Riders to the Sea. John M. Synge. Boston: John W. Luce, 1911. It is now in the public domain and may therefore be performed without royalties.CHARACTERSMAURYA, an old womanBARTLEY, her sonCATHLEEN, her daughterNORA, a youngerContinue Reading
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) was one of the major English Romantic poets, renowned for his lyrical beauty, radical political ideas, and imaginative power. Born into an aristocratic family in Sussex, England, Shelley was educated at Eton and Oxford, from which he was expelled for publishing a pamphlet titled The NecessityContinue Reading
A lyric poetry is a short poem, usually divided into stanzas and directly expressing in melodious language the thoughts, emotions and feelings of the poet himself. Originally, the Lyric meant a song which was to be sung in accompaniment with a Lyre or Harp. The original sense of the lyricContinue Reading
In the poem ‘To a Skylark’ Shelley addresses a skylark that soars up at a great height and sings so sweetly that the world is enchanted and bewitched by its sweetness. The skylark symbolizes many things. The skylark is Shelley’s greatest natural metaphor for pure poetic expression, the “harmonious madness”Continue Reading
The central thematic concerns of Shelley’s poetry are largely the same themes that defined Romanticism, especially among the younger English poets of Shelley’s era: beauty, the passions, nature, political liberty, creativity, and the sanctity of the imagination. What makes Shelley’s treatment of these themes unique is his philosophical relationship toContinue Reading
Percy Bysshe Shelley was an English Romantic poet who rebelled against conservative politics and values. He drew no essential distinction between poetry and politics, and his work reflected the radical ideas and revolutionary optimism of the era. In spite of the failure of the French Revolution, unlike Wordsworth or Coleridge,Continue Reading
“Ode to the West Wind” is a fine example of Shelley’s mytho-poetic imagination at work. The west wind is a spirit, as is the skylark. It possesses great powers and for this very reason Shelley can pray to it for what he feels he is deeply in need of. ShelleyContinue Reading
Candida, a comedy by playwright George Bernard Shaw, was written in 1894 and first published in 1898, as part of his Plays Pleasant. The play’s title is named after the central female character of a middle-aged housewife. The naming indicates Candida’s singular importance in the play and since Shaw, in aContinue Reading
Shaw’s ‘problem play’, Candida, deals with ‘The Woman Question’ in so far as it is a play about the issue of freedom of a domestic woman who is at the centre of the dramatic discourse. Candida is a very beautiful and seductive woman. She can charm men and usually gets what sheContinue Reading
