Seán O'Casey

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Seán O'Casey (1924)

Seán O'Casey (often Sean O'Casey ; Irish Seán Ó Cathasaigh , [ ˈʃɑːn̪ oːˈkahəsiː ]; born John Casey , born March 30, 1880 in Dublin , Ireland , † September 18, 1964 in Torquay , United Kingdom ) was an Irish Playwright and political activist of the Irish struggle for freedom and socialism . His depictions of the life of the poor in Dublin and his anti-war dramas made him a well-known playwright of the 20th century.

Life

O'Casey grew up in a middle-class Protestant family in north Dublin. After the father's death, the family became impoverished and O'Casey got to know life in the "slums" . His political work began when he entered the Gaelic League . He learned the Irish language on his own, played hurling in the GAA and began to learn the Uilleann Pipes , the Irish bagpipes. He also entered the Irish Republican Brotherhood . He joined the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union , founded by James Larkin , and in March 1914 became general secretary of the Irish Citizen Army, also founded by Larkin . When nationalism became more and more established there, he left the Irish Citizen Army as a staunch socialist in July 1914, justified by a dispute with James Connolly . O'Casey was very critical of the Dublin Easter Rising in 1916. (He processed his view of events in the 1926 drama The Plow and the Stars .)

He also resigned from the Gaelic League , which he had been of useful service for a long time with his thorough knowledge of the Gaelic language. Like the entire cultural movement of the Irish Renaissance , the Gaelic League appeared to him to be a predominantly upper-middle-class movement, while on his own biographical background he identified more strongly with the concerns of the working class.

After that, O'Casey began to write socially and socially critical plays with great success . From 1923 to 1927 they were all performed at the Abbey Theater . While the playwrights of the Irish Renaissance mostly completely hide the socio-political reality of urban Ireland in their works, O'Casey places his realistic plays in the lower social classes of the conflict-ridden Dublin workers and petty bourgeoisie. Characteristic of O'Casey's dramas is above all his combination of a realistic representation of social problems and facts with a melodramatic figure drawing and plot.

With the premiere of his Zweiakters The Shadow of a Gunman (dt. The shadow of a rebel ), in 1923, began O'Casey's Dublin Trilogy , he dealt with the failure of a social revolution in Ireland and the failure of the Easter Rising of 1916 in the. The male heroes are all anti-heroes, some sympathetic dreamers, some big talkers or cowards. The female figures, on the other hand, appear brave and courageously connected to life.

The Shadow of a Gunman met with great interest from the Dublin theater audience and, thanks to its pull, saved the Abbey Theater from bankruptcy; the third performance saw a sold out house for the first time.

1924 followed with equally great success Juno and the Paycock (dt. Juno and the Peacock ). For the work he received the Hawthornden Prize in 1925 . This tragic comedy established its fame in England and has not disappeared from the world's stages since. From then on, O'Casey was able to give up his job as a road worker and live on the income from his writing activities.

With The Plow and the Stars (dt. The Plow and the Stars ) came in February 1926, the last piece of Dublin trilogy for the performance, and it caused a scandal with the uproar caused by Synge's drama The Playboy of the Western World , 1907 is comparable. Irish nationalists were furious that O'Casey brought up a critical view of the Dublin Easter Rising. William Butler Yeats , who thought the play was a masterpiece, took the stage himself to defend the play.

However, when in 1927 O'Casey's anti-war play The Silver Tassie was rejected by Yeats, the director of the Abbey Theater , he emigrated to England . The dispute over The Silver Tassie reflected the fundamentally different views of the two poets with regard to the function and meaning of the drama. While Yeats attributed the drama primarily to the task of confronting people with the timeless general human problems of their existence, O'Casey was unwilling to separate his works from current events. Even if they are not exclusively concerned with Irish conditions, his dramas are directly related to contemporary developments such as the Irish struggle for freedom, the First World War, the Depression of the post-war period ( Within the Gates , 1934) or the Second World War ( Oak Leaves and Lavender , 1946) apart. The controversial piece The Silver Tassie was performed in London in 1929. After Yeats and O'Casey had reconciled, the play was also performed at the Abbey Theater in 1935 . The performance, however, triggered violent attacks that further alienated O'Casey from the Abbey Theater , which - meanwhile subsidized by the state - corresponded less and less to his stage design.

In England O'Casey wrote a number of other plays, which, however, with the exception of Within the Gates (1934), never became as famous as his first dramatic works; However, his 6-volume autobiography is received today as being on a par with his dramas.

In his hometown of Dublin, a footbridge over the River Liffey , the Sean O'Casey Bridge , is named after him.

Works

First editions

  • The Harvest Festival (1918, not listed)
  • The Story of the Irish Citizen Army (1919, published under the pseudonym P. Ó Cathasaigh )
  • The Shadow of a Gunman (1923) (Eng. The shadow of a rebel , The rebel who wasn't )
  • Kathleen Listens in (1923) (German: Kathleen listens )
  • Juno and the Paycock (1924) (German Juno and the peacock )
  • Nannie's Night out (1924) (German 1973 Nannie goes out )
  • The Plow and the Stars (1926) (German 1970 The Plow and the Stars )
  • The Silver Tassie (1927) (German 1952 The Prize Cup )
  • Within the Gates (1934) (Eng. The Park )
  • The End of the Beginning (1937) (dt. 1999 The end of the beginning )
  • A Pound on Demand (~ 1930) (Eng. Withdraw One pound )
  • The Star Turns Red (1940) (German 1967 The star turns red )
  • Red Roses for Me (1942) (German 1948 Red Roses for Me )
  • Purple Dust (1940/1945) ( Eng. Purple dust . An absurd comedy in three acts )
  • Oak Leaves and Lavender (1946) (German oak leaves and lavender )
  • Cock-a-Doodle Dandy (1949) (German 1969 Kikeriki )
  • Hall of Healing (1951) (German 1965 Hall of Healing )
  • Bedtime Story (1951) (German bedtime story )
  • The Bishop's Bonfire (1955) (Ger. 1982 The bonfire for the bishop )
  • Behind The Green Curtains (1961) (German 1965 Behind the Green Curtains )
  • Figuro in the Night (German figure in the night )
  • The Moon Shines on Kylenamoe (German 1965 The moon shines on Kylenamoe )
  • Time to go (1954) (German 1960 time to go )
  • The Drums of Father Ned (1959) (German 1966 Father Ned's drums )
  • 6-volume autobiography:
    • I Knock at the Door (dt. I knock on )
    • Pictures in the Hallway (dt. Pictures in the lobby )
    • Drums Under the Window ( Irish drums , also known as drums under the windows )
    • Inishfallen Fare Thee Well ( Ger . Ireland, goodbye!; In the hardcover part of Irish Drums )
    • Rose and Crown (German rose and crown )
    • Sunset and Evening Star (dt. Twilight and Evening Star )

Film adaptations

  • 1930: Juno and the Paycock - Director: Alfred Hitchcock
  • 1936: The Plow and the Stars ( The Plow and the Stars )
  • 1963: Uspořená libra ( A Pound on Demand ) - Director: Vladimír Svitáček, Ján Roháč (TV movie Czechoslovakia)
  • 1964: Cassidy, the Rebel ( Young Cassidy ) - With: Rod Taylor ; Directed by John Ford - based on O'Casey's autobiography
  • 1968: Pension for single men ( Penzion pro svobodne pany ) - based on the play "Bedtime Story"
  • 1975: Juno and the Peacock (theater recording)
  • 1995: Shadow of a Gunman ( Performance: Shadow of a Gunman ) - With: Kenneth Branagh

Radio play adaptations

  • 1961: The rebel who wasn't (DRS / SR, director: Werner Hausmann )
  • 1980: Juno and the Peacock (SDR)
  • 1983: The end of the beginning (radio of the GDR, director: Horst Liepach )
  • 1985: The Harvest Festival (GDR radio, director: Horst Liepach )

Anthologies in German translation

  • Urs Widmer (ed.): Sean O'Casey. A selection from the plays, the autobiography and the essays . With a foreword by Heinrich Böll and an afterword by Klaus Völker. Diogenes, Zurich 1970.
    • New edition: Urs Widmer (ed.): The Sean O'Casey reading book . With a foreword by Heinrich Böll and an afterword by Klaus Völker. Diogenes, Zurich 1984. 3-257-21126-0.

literature

(in order of appearance)

Overall representations of life and work

  • Kurt Wittig: Sean O'Casey as a playwright. A contribution to Ireland's post-war drama . Scharf, Leipzig 1937.
  • Klaus Völker : Sean O'Casey (= Irish Theater, Vol. 2). Friedrich Verlag, Velber near Hanover 1968.
  • Heinz Kosok: Sean O'Casey. The dramatic work . Schmidt, Berlin 1972. ISBN 3-503-00713-X .
  • Manfred Pauli: Sean O'Casey. Drama, poetry, reality . Henschel, Berlin 1977.
  • John Mitchell: The essential O'Casey. A study of the twelve major plays of Sean O'Casey . Seven Seas Publishers, Berlin 1980.
  • Literature and Politics in Ireland. Sean O'Casey on his 100th birthday . (= Gulliver. German-English Yearbooks , Vol. 7). Argument-Verlag, Berlin 1980. ISBN 3-920037-27-8

Literary studies on individual aspects

  • Thomas Metscher : Sean O'Casey's dramatic style . Dissertation University of Heidelberg 1967 (= archive for the study of modern languages ​​and literatures. Supplement 3).
  • Manfred Pauli: Poetic exaggeration and dramatic structure. The breadth and variety of realistic portrayals in Sean O'Casey's pieces . Dissertation University of Leipzig 1974.
  • Werner Besier: The young Sean O'Casey. A study on the relationship between art and society . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1974. ISBN 3-261-01482-2 .
  • Peter Stapelberg: Sean O'Casey and the German-language theater (1948–1974). Empirical study of the mechanisms of reception of an Anglo-Irish playwright . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1979. ISBN 3-8204-6304-6 .
  • Beate Lahrmann-Hartung: Sean O'Casey and the epic theater Bertolt Brechts . Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1983. ISBN 3-8204-7525-7 .
  • Peter James Harris: Sean O'Casey's letters and autobiographies. Reflections of a radical ambivalence . Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, Trier 2004. ISBN 3-88476-687-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Robert Fricker: Sean O'Casey: Juno and the Paycock. In: Horst Oppel (ed.): The modern English drama · Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag 2nd edition Berlin 1966, p. 183.
  2. ↑ See Hans Ulrich Seeber: Celtic Renaissance and Irish literature . In: Hans Ulrich Seeber (Ed.): English literary history . 4th ext. Ed. JB Metzler, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-476-02035-5 , pp. 330–333, especially p. 333.
  3. ^ Klaus Völker: Irish Theater II. Sean O'Casey , 1968, Friedrich Verlag, pp. 26/27.
  4. ↑ See Robert Fricker: Sean O'Casey: Juno and the Paycock. In: Horst Oppel (ed.): The modern English drama · Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag 2nd edition Berlin 1966, p. 183.
  5. ^ Heinz Kosok: Sean O'Casey, Juno and the Paycock. In: Hans Weber (Hrsg.): Dramas of the 20th Century for English Lessons in Upper Secondary School - Interpretations , Diesterweg Verlag Frankfurt aM et al. 1982, ISBN 3-425-04209-2 , pp. 8-24, here p. 8.
  6. ↑ See Robert Fricker: Sean O'Casey: Juno and the Paycock. In: Horst Oppel (ed.): The modern English drama · Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag 2nd edition Berlin 1966, p. 183.
  7. ^ Terence Brown: The Life of WB Yeats. A Critical Biography , Oxford 1999, 2001, Blackwell Publishers, p. 311
  8. ↑ See Robert Fricker: Sean O'Casey: Juno and the Paycock. In: Horst Oppel (ed.): The modern English drama · Interpretations . Schmidt Verlag 2nd edition Berlin 1966, p. 184.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME O'Casey, Seán
ALTERNATIVE NAMES O'Casey, Sean; Ó Cathasaigh, Seán; Casey, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish activist, playwright and writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Dublin
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 1964
Place of death Torquay , England