I'm glad you came back to read Lizzie!! You're absolutely right, Lizzie can hold her own without the support of O'Casey and Dickens. I'm still trying to devise a framework or form in which to contain her many memories.
I hope by the same token, Patrick, that you are recording your mother's memories which also sound fascinating. Oral history is an invaluable source of insight into the texture and reality of people's day-to-day lives and needs to be preserved and shared.
I agree that the rift between Yeats and O'Casey was a sad one and a great loss both to Irish theatre and O'Casey who, as you say, lost his way in England. However, I can't agree that Yeats was ignorant, wrong-headed sometimes, yes, but without him and Lady Gregory we wouldn't have O'Casey's Dublin 'trilogy', which, on the evidence of the current productions, has retained its popularity. I saw a brilliant production of The Silver Tassie in the Abbey circa 1988. As far as I am aware it has not been produced in Dublin since then.
My grandfather (who was from Mayo) had a public disagreement with Yeats on the basis that many of the plays in the Abbey "presented an untrue picture of peasant life". Padraic Colum and Thomas McDonagh disagreed with my grandfather. At a subsequent talk where my grandfather expressed his views again Patrick Pearse "disagreed violently" with him saying he had come to appreciate the international renown of the Abbey and concluded, "Is gníom é (It is something done)".
The question of writers writing what they know has been a fraught one for a long time, and has gained new impetus under the current rubric of 'cultural appropriation'. Indeed, the topic was much discussed this weekend at the International Dublin Writers' Festival with people weighing in on both sides of the argument and no clear resolution.
I don't like Yeats letter to O'Casey. Yeats was incredibly ignorant. He robbed Irish drama of one of its greatest dramatists because he could not understand that you did not have to experience a war to realize the consequences of a war. What did Yeats know about 1916? He wrote about it but he wasn't involved in it. He was an observer. His perspective on Irish society is compromised by his exaggerated view of the contribution of Protestant intellectuals who had little time for the predominantly Catholic natives. It is really strange that Yeats who involved himself in nothing but felt free to write anything censured an author who definitely knew more than him. I reckon Yeats was out of his league. Unfortunately, the outcome of this letter was that Ireland lost a great playwright, someone who would speak for us. O'Casey, based in England, robbed of the Irish context, lost his way.
Missed the download of Lizzie's life. Did it now. Read it, but need to read it again. My mother is 97 and she says the same truths - missing truths. Her father was a stone mason who built bridges and houses mostly for 1914 veterans. But during the civil war, a neighbor reported him as being sympathetic to the IRA. They came to his workplace, the black and tans, the informer was hooded, and my grandfather was hauled down from the scaffold. He was saved because the Protestant councilor supported him. (We have the letter of the apology of the accuser, which is amazing. But, nothing like this is released publicly because you don't want to embarrass a family because one family member decided to be 'different'. )
I am going to be really bad and say to you Aisling that Lizzie does not need O'Casey or Dickens to tell her story or provide a context.
From what I have read, she is her own story. And you have enough material to make her real and give her a voice. You've already done it.
Thanks Robert. Like you I thought Yeats offered O'Casey excellent advice. For all that he dreamt of living like a hermit he loved the administrative hustle of the Abbey and mentoring young writers eg Synge.
That paragraph from the Yeats letter that begins “Among the things …” is great advice, advice that could be given to many a novelist as well as dramatist. I shouldn’t have been surprised that WBY gave such grounded workshop-style advice—he spent a lot more time at the Abbey than on the lake isle of Innisfree—but I was.
Thanks for this, a brilliant followup! I spent another day completely immersed in O'Casey's autobio but am almost out of the woods on it. Some remarkably funny and interesting things in there.
Thanks Tod. Yeats' letter is fascinating for its instructions to the younger writer. I love his parting comment/apology. Self-knowledge there! I do want to bring more of Lizzie's memories to life. True, my love and respect for her are the driver. Now all I need is the vehicle!
I'm glad you came back to read Lizzie!! You're absolutely right, Lizzie can hold her own without the support of O'Casey and Dickens. I'm still trying to devise a framework or form in which to contain her many memories.
I hope by the same token, Patrick, that you are recording your mother's memories which also sound fascinating. Oral history is an invaluable source of insight into the texture and reality of people's day-to-day lives and needs to be preserved and shared.
I agree that the rift between Yeats and O'Casey was a sad one and a great loss both to Irish theatre and O'Casey who, as you say, lost his way in England. However, I can't agree that Yeats was ignorant, wrong-headed sometimes, yes, but without him and Lady Gregory we wouldn't have O'Casey's Dublin 'trilogy', which, on the evidence of the current productions, has retained its popularity. I saw a brilliant production of The Silver Tassie in the Abbey circa 1988. As far as I am aware it has not been produced in Dublin since then.
My grandfather (who was from Mayo) had a public disagreement with Yeats on the basis that many of the plays in the Abbey "presented an untrue picture of peasant life". Padraic Colum and Thomas McDonagh disagreed with my grandfather. At a subsequent talk where my grandfather expressed his views again Patrick Pearse "disagreed violently" with him saying he had come to appreciate the international renown of the Abbey and concluded, "Is gníom é (It is something done)".
The question of writers writing what they know has been a fraught one for a long time, and has gained new impetus under the current rubric of 'cultural appropriation'. Indeed, the topic was much discussed this weekend at the International Dublin Writers' Festival with people weighing in on both sides of the argument and no clear resolution.
I don't like Yeats letter to O'Casey. Yeats was incredibly ignorant. He robbed Irish drama of one of its greatest dramatists because he could not understand that you did not have to experience a war to realize the consequences of a war. What did Yeats know about 1916? He wrote about it but he wasn't involved in it. He was an observer. His perspective on Irish society is compromised by his exaggerated view of the contribution of Protestant intellectuals who had little time for the predominantly Catholic natives. It is really strange that Yeats who involved himself in nothing but felt free to write anything censured an author who definitely knew more than him. I reckon Yeats was out of his league. Unfortunately, the outcome of this letter was that Ireland lost a great playwright, someone who would speak for us. O'Casey, based in England, robbed of the Irish context, lost his way.
Missed the download of Lizzie's life. Did it now. Read it, but need to read it again. My mother is 97 and she says the same truths - missing truths. Her father was a stone mason who built bridges and houses mostly for 1914 veterans. But during the civil war, a neighbor reported him as being sympathetic to the IRA. They came to his workplace, the black and tans, the informer was hooded, and my grandfather was hauled down from the scaffold. He was saved because the Protestant councilor supported him. (We have the letter of the apology of the accuser, which is amazing. But, nothing like this is released publicly because you don't want to embarrass a family because one family member decided to be 'different'. )
I am going to be really bad and say to you Aisling that Lizzie does not need O'Casey or Dickens to tell her story or provide a context.
From what I have read, she is her own story. And you have enough material to make her real and give her a voice. You've already done it.
I love what you are doing.
Glad you liked it, Chris. I look forward to reading your thoughts on O'Casey.
Thanks Robert. Like you I thought Yeats offered O'Casey excellent advice. For all that he dreamt of living like a hermit he loved the administrative hustle of the Abbey and mentoring young writers eg Synge.
That paragraph from the Yeats letter that begins “Among the things …” is great advice, advice that could be given to many a novelist as well as dramatist. I shouldn’t have been surprised that WBY gave such grounded workshop-style advice—he spent a lot more time at the Abbey than on the lake isle of Innisfree—but I was.
Thanks for this, a brilliant followup! I spent another day completely immersed in O'Casey's autobio but am almost out of the woods on it. Some remarkably funny and interesting things in there.
Thanks Tod. Yeats' letter is fascinating for its instructions to the younger writer. I love his parting comment/apology. Self-knowledge there! I do want to bring more of Lizzie's memories to life. True, my love and respect for her are the driver. Now all I need is the vehicle!
I love Yeats letter to Casey. Another piece of writing that's a literature course unto itself.
Looking forward to see how you go forward with Lizzie. How will it all come together?
Maybe your love for her is what holds it together?
Thanks for this Aisling.