ABSTRACT
In the 1903 issue of Samhain, Yeats introduces John Millington Synge to the Dublin literary community as “a new writer and a creation of our movement” (7). Although this description establishes the unquestionable link between Synge’s work and the National Theatre, Yeats’s characteristically egocentric suggestion that the movement he founded “created” Synge is, among other things, highly incongruous with the public image Synge cultivated for himself. While Synge wrote all six of his plays for the National Theatre and sat alongside Yeats and Gregory on the board of the National Theatre Society, Limited from its incorporation in 1906 to his death in 1909, Synge regarded all aspects of his public life with what Christopher Murray identifi es as “ironic detachment” (65). Even more than Yeats and Gregory, Synge saw national identity as the creation of artists working freely and independently, and, as such he feared being associated too closely with any movement or organization, including the National Theater. As a result of this fi ercely defended artistic independence and its manifestation in Synge’s work, it would be more accurate to say that Synge created the National Theatre, at least as we think of it today, than to say the Theatre created him. Indeed, although Synge was a relative latecomer to the movement, his plays and the phenomena they created did more to establish the institutional identity of the Irish National Theatre than any other writer’s.
