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Riders to the Sea (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
Riders to the Sea (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
Riders to the Sea (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
Ebook36 pages18 minutes

Riders to the Sea (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

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An evocative one-act tragedy set in the Aran Islands at the home of Maurya, who has lost her husband, father-in-law, and five of her six sons at sea. Her surviving son is preparing to sail to another town, and Maurya, fearing for his life, urges him not to go.

LanguageEnglish
Release dateApr 26, 2011
ISBN9781411450820
Riders to the Sea (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)
Author

John Millington Synge

John Millington Synge (1871-1909) was an Irish playwright, poet, and author. Known for his depiction of Irish people and their struggles, Synge was a key figure in the Irish Literary Revival, and was also of prominent influence in the folklore genre. Synge suffered from poor health for most of his life, tragically succumbing to his illnesses just before his thirty-eighth birthday.

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    4 stars for the full cast LibriVox recording (the last play in a collection of one act plays found here).I read this extremely short one act play (contained in the book "Five Great Modern Irish Plays") while listening to the LibriVox recording. The Irish voices of the cast helped bring the play to life for me. The play itself is very sad, about a woman who loses her last remaining son to an accidental drowning just the day after another son's body has been identified.… This play stands up well to reading (as opposed to seeing a performance).

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Riders to the Sea (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) - John Millington Synge

RIDERS TO THE SEA

JOHN MILLINGTON SYNGE

This 2011 edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

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ISBN: 978-1-4114-5082-0

INTRODUCTION

It must have been on Synge's second visit to the Aran Islands that he had the experience out of which was wrought what many believe to be his greatest play. The scene of Riders to the Sea is laid in a cottage on Inishmaan, the middle and most interesting island of the Aran group. While Synge was on Inishmaan, the story came to him of a man whose body had been washed up on the far away coast of Donegal, and who, by reason of certain peculiarities of dress, was suspected to be from the island. In due course, he was recognised as a native of Inishmaan, in exactly the manner described in the play, and perhaps one of the most poignantly vivid passages in Synge's book on The Aran Islands relates the incident of his burial.

The other element in the story which Synge introduces into the play is equally true. Many tales of second sight are to be heard among Celtic races. In fact, they are so common as

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