As mentioned in a previous post, I recently took a course at U of T on modern drama.^{*I’ll never reveal my mark, but it was probably a bad sign for one of us that my prof complained on my first paper about there being no letters lower than ‘F’.} Among the gems I left with was this quote from Yeats, on J. M. Synge after Synge’s death at thirty-eight: “In all art like [Synge's], although it does not command—indeed because it does not—may lie the roots of far-branching events. Only that which does not reach, which does not cry out, which does not persuade, which does not condescend, which does not explain, is irresistible.”

I thought this was an excellent evocation not only of what makes a certain kind of drama powerful, but a certain kind of non-fiction as well. (more…)

Tags: Chris Tenove, J. M. Synge, John Updike, Mark Anthony Jarman, narrative non-fiction, New New Journalism, Riders to the Sea, The Aran Islands, The Playboy of the Western World, W. B. Yeats
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