J. M. SYNGE, THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TRADITION AND MODERNITY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF SYNGE’S MODERNIST AESTHETIC
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31851/20sntf76Keywords:
Modernism, ethnography, commodified authenticity, J.M. Synge, The Playboy of the Western World, traditionAbstract
This study investigates the interplay between tradition and modernity in the formation of J. M. Synge’s modernist aesthetic, focusing primarily on The Playboy of the Western World. Drawing on theories of ethnographic representation, commodified authenticity, and modernist aesthetics, it examines how Synge reworks Irish peasant culture and folkloric traditions into dramatic forms that contest both nationalist idealisation and colonial representations of Irish identity. Through close textual analysis, the study argues that Synge’s dramaturgy negotiates a persistent tension between ethnographic observation and artistic autonomy. His dramatic treatment of violence, language, identity formation, and misrecognition reveals national identity and cultural authenticity as constructed, contested, and performatively sustained rather than fixed or inherited realities. The study contributes to Irish literary criticism, postcolonial studies, cultural studies, theatre and performance studies, and modernist scholarship. It also offers a comparative framework for examining how folklore and cultural identity are reinterpreted in other postcolonial and post-traditional contexts, including Indonesian literature, regional performance traditions, and cultural heritage studies. Overall, the analysis suggests that Synge’s modernist practice transforms tradition from a static cultural inheritance into a dynamic resource, continually reconfigured through dramatic performance, narrative mediation, and aesthetic experimentation.
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