John Singer's Comedic Drama and Western Culture

Abstract

The writing of the West in Irish drama began in the Irish Renaissance in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and continues to this day. During the Irish Renaissance, in order to resist British colonial rule, writers endowed the western frontier region of Ireland with romantic imagery and mythic qualities, seeing it as a cultural symbol embodying nationhood, poetic idyll and Irishness. The West of Ireland fits perfectly with the writers' construction of Irish culture during this period in terms of its colonial history, economic environment, sense of national identity, language and culture, and religious beliefs. Thus, the Irish West became not only a symbol of Irish identity, but also a unique ideological field for the revitalisation of the Irish nation.