Irish Literary Revival in the context of "Augusta, Lady Gregory"

Irish literature is literature written in the Irish, Latin, English and Scots (Ulster Scots) languages on the island of Ireland. The earliest recorded Irish writing dates from back in the 7th century and was produced by monks writing in both Latin and Early Irish, including religious texts, poetry and mythological tales. There is a large surviving body of Irish mythological writing, including tales such as Táin Bó Cúailnge and Buile Shuibhne.

The English language was introduced to Ireland in the 13th century, following the Norman invasion of Ireland. The 16th and 17th centuries saw a major expansion of English power across Ireland, further expanding the presence of early Modern English speakers. One theory is that in the latter part of the nineteenth century saw a rapid replacement of Irish by English in the greater part of the country, largely due to the Great Famine and the subsequent decimation of the Irish population by starvation and emigration. Another theory among modern scholars is that far from being a sudden cataclysmic event the language shift was well underway much earlier. At the end of the century, however, cultural nationalism displayed a new energy, marked by the Gaelic Revival (which encouraged a modern literature in Irish) and more generally by the Irish Literary Revival.

William Butler Yeats (/jeɪts/ YAYTS; 13 June 1865 – 28 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and, along with John Millington Synge and Lady Gregory, founded the Abbey Theatre, serving as its chief during its early years. He was awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Literature and later served two terms as a Senator of the Irish Free State.

A Protestant of Anglo-Irish descent, Yeats was born in Sandymount, Ireland. His father practised law and was a successful portrait painter. He was educated in Dublin and London and spent his childhood holidays in County Sligo. He studied poetry from an early age, when he became fascinated by Irish legends and the occult. While in London he became part of the Irish literary revival. His early poetry was influenced by John Keats, William Wordsworth, William Blake and many more. These topics feature in the first phase of his work, lasting roughly from his student days at the Metropolitan School of Art in Dublin until the end of the 19th century. His earliest volume of verse was published in 1889, and its slow-paced, modernist and lyrical poems display debts to Edmund Spenser, Percy Bysshe Shelley and the poets of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

The Celtic Revival (also referred to as the Celtic Twilight) is a variety of movements and trends in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries that see a renewed interest in aspects of Celtic culture. Artists and writers drew on the traditions of Gaelic literature, Welsh-language literature, and Celtic art—what historians call insular art (the Early Medieval style of Ireland and Britain). Although the revival was complex and multifaceted, occurring across many fields and in various countries in Northwest Europe, its best known incarnation is probably the Irish Literary Revival. Irish writers including William Butler Yeats, John Millington Synge, Lady Gregory, "Æ" Russell, Edward Martyn, Alice Milligan and Edward Plunkett (Lord Dunsany) stimulated a new appreciation of traditional Irish literature and Irish poetry in the late 19th and early 20th century.

In aspects the revival came to represent a reaction to modernisation. This is particularly true in Ireland, where the relationship between the archaic and the modern was antagonistic, where history was fractured, and where, according to Terry Eagleton, "as a whole [the nation] had not leapt at a bound from tradition to modernity". At times this romantic view of the past resulted in historically inaccurate portrayals, such as the promotion of noble savage stereotypes of the Irish people and Scottish Highlanders, as well as a racialized view that referred to the Irish, whether positively or negatively, as a separate race.

Edmund John Millington Synge (/sɪŋ/; 16 April 1871 – 24 March 1909), popularly known as J. M. Synge, was an Irish playwright, poet, writer, and collector of folklores. As a key figure of the Irish Literary Revival during the early 20th century, he is widely regarded by critics and scholars as one of the most influential dramatists of the Edwardian era, and by several of his peers, among them William Butler Yeats, as the most prolific playwright in Irish literature.

His play The Playboy of the Western World (1907), one of his best-known works, was initially poorly received, due to its bleak ending, crude depiction of poor Irish peasants, and the idealisation of patricide, leading to hostile audience reactions and street riots in Dublin during its opening run at the Abbey Theatre, which he had co-founded with W. B. Yeats and Lady Gregory. His other major works include In the Shadow of the Glen (1903), Riders to the Sea (1904), The Well of the Saints (1905), and The Tinker's Wedding (1909). Most of his plays were known for their highly realistic depiction of Irish societies and culture, and included plots, themes, landscapes, and settings from places he visited during his travels.

The Abbey Theatre (Irish: Amharclann na Mainistreach), also known as the National Theatre of Ireland (Irish: Amharclann Náisiúnta na hÉireann) is a theatre in Dublin, Ireland. First opening to the public on 27 December 1904, and moved from its original building after a fire in 1951, it has remained active to the present day. The Abbey was the first state-subsidized theatre in the English-speaking world; from 1925 onwards it received an annual subsidy from the Irish Free State. Since July 1966, the Abbey has been located at 26 Lower Abbey Street, Dublin 1.

In its early years, the theatre was closely associated with the writers of the Irish Literary Revival, many of whom were involved in its founding and most of whom had plays staged there. The Abbey served as a nursery for many of leading Irish playwrights, including William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, Seán O'Casey and John Millington Synge, as well as leading actors. In addition, through its extensive programme of touring abroad and its high visibility to foreign, particularly American, audiences, it has become an important part of the Irish theatre history and Irish cultural brand.

Irish poetry is poetry written by poets from Ireland, politically the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland today. It is mainly written in Irish, though some is in English, Scottish Gaelic and others in Hiberno-Latin. The complex interplay between the two main traditions, and between both of them and other poetries in English and Scottish Gaelic, has produced a body of work that is both rich in variety and difficult to categorise.

The earliest surviving written poems in Irish date back to the 6th century, while the first known poems in English from Ireland date to the 14th century. Although there has always been some cross-fertilisation between the two language traditions, an English-language poetry that had absorbed themes and models from Irish did not finally emerge until the 19th century. This culminated in the work of the poets of the Irish Literary Revival in the late 19th and early 20th century.