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Savage paganism: the playboy of the western world

Collins, Christopher

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Abstract

This chapter interrogates The Playboy of the Western World in relation to Synge’s scientific analysis of fairy changeling folklore. This chapter proposes an alternative reading of the infamous disturbances that greeted the opening of the performance by looking at the relationship between the play and the ‘Clonmel horror’ of 1895. In March of that year Bridget Cleary, a successful twenty-six year-old dressmaker from South Tipperary, was ritually immolated because she was feared to be a fairy changeling. The chapter tracks the relationship between the Clonmel horror and the dramaturgy of the play, and also the shocking ramifications that the dramaturgy of a play based on the Clonmel horror had in performance when one member of the audience explicitly identified the relationship.

Citation

Collins, C. (2016). Savage paganism: the playboy of the western world. In Theatre and Residual Culture: J.M. Synge and Pre-Christian Ireland (201-258). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94872-7

Acceptance Date Nov 15, 2015
Publication Date Jun 26, 2016
Deposit Date Aug 25, 2016
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Pages 201-258
Book Title Theatre and Residual Culture: J.M. Synge and Pre-Christian Ireland
ISBN 9781349948710
DOI https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94872-7
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/793469
Publisher URL http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-94872-7
Additional Information Collins, Christopher, Savage paganism: the playboy of the western world, 2016, Palgrave Macmillan reproduced with permission of Palgrave Macmillan.


This extract is taken from the author's original manuscript and has not been edited. The definitive, published, version of record is available here: http://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9781349948710.

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