Synopses & Reviews
The silence of Barbara Synge provides a fascinating companion volume to Bill McCormack's acclaimed Fool of the Family (2000), a biography of the playwright J.M. Synge (1871--1909).
Taking the alledged death of Mrs John Hatch (née Synge) in 1767 as a focal point, this book explores the varied strands of the Synge family tree in eighteenth and nineteenth century Ireland.
Key events in the family's history are carefully documented, including a suicide in 1769 which is echoed in an early Synge play, the effects of the famine which influenced The Playboy of the Western World in 1907, and the behavior of Francis Synge at the time of the union.
The Silence of Barbara Synge is a unique work of cultural enquiry, combining archival research, literary criticism, and religious and medical history to pull the strands together and relate them to the family's literary descendent J.M. Synge.
About the Author
W. J. McCormack is Professor of Literary History at Goldsmiths College, University of London.
Table of Contents
Introducing -- the Synges from Bridgnorth, Shropshire * Part 1 Settings: Lands Elsewhere: Wicklow * Other people: The Hatches * A little learning * The Mill at Amino * The state of the roads 8 Part 2 Hatched, matched and despatched: An MP and his wife * Death in the mountains * A battle of wills * On debt 8 Part 3 The Devil's Glen: Roundwood and afte * Her brother's will, 1792 * The sceond Archdiaconate * Rebellion, union and family romance * Part 4 Affairs with the moon: How Pestalozzi reached Wicklow * Melmoth, the Stay--at--Home * In Darby's field * Part 5 Literature at nurse: John Hatch, a country doctor * Windfalls * Work house insurgency * Concerning J.M. Synge (1871--1909): Madness and local government * Insulting 'The Playboy' * A county in romance * The wounded dramatist takes his bow