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Rider To The Sea is Poetic Drama, in 20th century English literature there is found the gradual growth of poetic drama as a separate genera. Poetic drama's are generally based on the poetic treatment of the language used in the drama. In 20th century this kind of dramatic literature has a special place among the other acts. According to some critics the language which is used in the play Rider To The Sea is highly poetic. This one act play is based upon the idiom of the rural people, whose speech is naturally politic both in imagery rhythm. Though the drama is written in prose style, it has the typical rhythm and cadence of poetry, that strings from the natural dialect of the humble and rustic language. The use of monosyllabic words the repetition of words and the variation produce a peculiar music in the lines used in the play. For instances -
"He is gone now God spare us and we will not see him again, he is gone now and when the black night is falling, I will have no son left me in the world."
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| Rider To The Sea |
There is a rhythm in the pattern of the sentences, in the the repetition and in the use of very simple and suggestive words. Synge uses the popular speech a dialect of English enriched by Celtic terms of phrase. Through in the entire drama the poetic features and the nature of Irish poetic syntax has been used in almost all of the major structure of the language or the dialogues. Synge prose is almost considered here a free verse weaving out of the innumerable rhythms and speech patterns. In this way the play can structure we called a successful major poetic drama in 20th century English literature.
At this point, I might say a word about Riders To The Sea, which we call poetic though they are written in prose. The plays of John Millington Synge form rather a special case, because they are based upon the idiom of a rural people, whose speech is naturally poetic, both in imagery and in rhythm. I believe that he even incorporated phrases which he had heard from these country people of Ireland. The language of Synge is not available except for plays set among that same people. We can draw more general conclusions from the plays in prose (so much admired in my youth, and now hardly even read) by Maeterlinck. Riders To The Sea is in a different way restricted, in their subject matter; and to say that the characterization in it, is an understatement. I do not deny that they have some poetic quality. But in order to be poetic in prose, a dramatist has to be so consistently poetic that his scope is very limited. Synge wrote plays about characters whose originals in life talked poetically, so he could make them talk poetry and remain real people. The poetic prose dramatist who has not this advantage, has to be too poetic. The poetic drama in prose is more limited by poetic convention or by our conventions as to what subject matter is poetic, than is the poetic drama in verse. A really dramatic verse can be employed, as Shakespeare employed it, to say the most matter-of-fact things.