‘The Cries of Pagan Desperation’: Synge, Riders to the Sea and the discontents of historical time

Tools

Collins, Christopher (2014) ‘The Cries of Pagan Desperation’: Synge, Riders to the Sea and the discontents of historical time. Irish Theatre International, 3 (1). pp. 7-23. ISSN 2014-0870

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

This essay considers Synge’s staging of the caoine (keen) in Riders to the Sea(1904). It argues that the caoine in Riders to the Sea is not simply an aesthetic and unethical fetishization of pre-Christian cultural residue predicated on class insecurity, but a performance philosophy of modernity. Synge’s knowledge of caoineadh (keening) as a cultural performance, and as an object of academic study, is contextualized using various unpublished manuscripts in order to demonstrate how the caoine in the Ireland of Synge’s time was considered to be the discontents of historical time. Unorthodox histories summon unorthodox

temporalities and, in Riders to the Sea, it is argued that Synge called forth an alternative temporality of modernity that punctured and punctuated dominant specularity whether that was Anglo-Irish or Catholic in its gaze.

Item Type:	Article
RIS ID:	https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/998149
Schools/Departments:	University of Nottingham, UK > Faculty of Arts > School of English
Related URLs:	URL URL Type http://istr.ie/irish-theatre-international/irish-theatre-international-3-1-2014/iti-31-2014-table-of-contents/ Publisher
Depositing User:	Eprints, Support
Date Deposited:	18 Mar 2016 12:21
Last Modified:	04 May 2020 20:16
URI:	https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/32386

Actions (Archive Staff Only)

Edit View

LoginAdmin