Staging the Authentic and the Theatre of Universality in J.M. Synge’s The Shadow of the Glen

Abstract

This paper argues that J.M. Synge’s [1] The Shadow of the Glen can be used to sharpen our understanding of the relationships between regionalism, universality and the authentic in dramatic literature. My suggestion is that the key component in that tension is Synge’s presentation of what was to be considered authentic, since literature in Ireland was real exercise in fostering national consciousness. I argue that Synge’s representation of the regional drifts from issues of “authenticity” not because it is not a factual account of real events, but because it is not so heavily and so self-consciously authenticated. As shall be argued below, The Shadow of the Glen is concerned with the local, presented with a universal interest. Synge universalizes the characters’ experiences as he revisits the golden past of the Gaelic culture. This is not to suggest that the playwright was not authentic, but instead that his play shows the author’s self-awareness about how literary constructions of the authentic function. He understood that the representation of the regional to a metropolitan audience will always require a negotiation of the relationship between reality and audience’s expectation. Synge managed that tension not by asserting the authenticity of his narrative but by insisting on the authenticity of his own outlook as an artist. This self-consciousness in the presentation and reconstruction of the clash between the regional and the global is an example of how we can think of Synge as a modernist writer.