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The playboy of the western world and two other Irish plays

Part of the Penguin twentieth-century classics series
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A murderer becomes the toast of the village as his charm negates his crime.

A young countess saves her tenants from starvation, but only by selling her soul to the Devil.

The sleepy parish of Nyadnanave sees a vision of a cockerel that dares the inhabitants to break the shackles of Church and State.

All these plays were met with moral outrage and rioting in their native Ireland. Yeats's 'The Countess Cathleen' (1892), J. M. Synge's 'The Playboy of the Western World' (1907) and O'Casey's 'Cock-a-doodle Dandy' (1949) emerged from a period of traumatic change for Ireland.

While the plays bear witness to the immmense social upheavals of the turn of the twentieth century, they also represent a new age of Irish drama that rose from the turmoil, and their lessons ring true to this day.

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Product Details
Penguin Classics
0140188789 / 9780140188783
Paperback / softback
30/07/2009
United Kingdom
English
224p.
20 cm
general Learn More
Reprint. Originally published: as Classic Irish drama. 1964. Contents: The Countess Cathleen / W. B. Yeats. Originally published: London: Unwin, 1892 - The playboy of the western world / J. M. Synge. Originally published: Dublin: Maunsel, 1907 - Cock-a-doodle dandy / Sean O'Casey. Originally publis
Author won Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923
Author won Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923 DD Plays, playscripts