I
It is sometimes said that an artist never intrudes his personality
into his work and that the great writers of the world have kept
themselves so closely to themselves that their readers have never been
able to discover anything of their faith or partialities. This is not
only untrue, but is also absurd, for how can any man hope to exclude
himself from his creations, since without him the creations would not
be? There never was a book of any sort which did not in some fashion
reveal the nature of its author to discerning readers, and I will
personally undertake to give a fairly accurate account of the general
character of any author after an attentive reading of all his writings.
There are authors, such as Mr. Bernard Shaw and Mr. H. G. Wells, who
do not make any pretence of excluding themselves from the notice of
their readers: they deliberately force themselves into their books;
and the habit has become so much a part of their nature that they
sometimes do it unconsciously. One may say of them, perhaps, that we
learn chiefly from their writings what their opinions are, but learn
nothing of their characters. But while it is true that we do receive
much information about their opinions, it is true also, I think, that
they unmistakably reveal themselves, something of the intimate parts of
them, to those who closely consider their books. Fielding formally held
up the course of his stories in order that he might state his views to
his readers, and Dickens and Thackeray followed his example; but all
three of them revealed more than their beliefs to their readers--they
revealed themselves. Mr. Shaw and Mr. Wells are excellent examples of
what may be described as the Direct Revealers--writers who nakedly
manifest their opinions and, more or less nakedly, their personalities
in their books. The Indirect Revealers are best exemplified in two
poets, Shakespeare and John Millington Synge, and one novelist and
dramatist, Mr. John Galsworthy. We have very little documentary
evidence of Shakespeare's existence, and it is impossible, therefore,
to write his biography with the accuracy of detail with which one is
able to record the events of, say, Roosevelt's career; but there is
a clear and unmistakable account of his hopes and fears and beliefs
and disbeliefs, a most faithful portrait of his character, contained
in his poems and plays. How can any one fail to discover behind his
work the figure of a grave, fastidious, disdainful and distrustful and
solitary man whose spiritual solitude was concealed under an appearance
of gregariousness and cheerful living that made him a good companion
on most occasions without being excessively popular. Ben Jonson,
despite his quarrelsome character, was probably more deeply loved by
his contemporaries than Shakespeare was, because Shakespeare had more
of reserve and spiritual isolation than Ben had, and was less willing
to put faith in the virtue of the crowd; and I imagine that had one
interrogated any of Shakespeare's friends, they would have said of him,
"Oh, yes, I like William Shakespeare very much! Talks well! He's a good
chap, but a little odd ... queer ... at times. It isn't easy to make
friends with him. He always keeps us at our distance--not deliberately,
of course, but in some vague way. He understands us all right, and he
takes part in our revels, but he never completely descends to our
level. Now, old Ben ... he's a good, hearty chap! He is so comradely
that we frequently forget he is Ben Jonson and think of him as just one
of ourselves. Shakespeare's friendly enough, but we never forget that
he is Shakespeare. Sometimes, quite unintentionally, he makes us feel a
little common!..."
The best biography of John Synge that I have read--and l have read
all of them--is contained in his plays and poems. It is impossible
to rise from his books without an impression of intense loneliness
and unachievable desires, of a man eager to be the hero of romantic
exploits, but totally unable to stand up to life and make himself a
hero because of some spiritual ineffectiveness, some lack of assertion
which results in fumbling and self-distrust; and one goes from the
plays and poems to the biographies and is not surprised at reading of
his lonely life. How often the word "lonesome" occurs in his writings,
and how deeply he insists on the terrors of solitude! Pegeen Mike in
the "The Playboy of the Western World" reproves her father for going
"over the sands to Kate Cassidy's wake" and leaving her alone in the
shebeen:
If I am a queer daughter, it's a queer father'd be leaving me
lonesome these twelve hours of dark, and I piling the turf with
the dogs barking, and the calves mooing, and my own teeth rattling
with the fear.
I imagine that there is some deep personal feeling of Synge's in the
speech he puts into the mouth of Christy Mahon in the second act of the
same play:
CHRISTY: And isn't it a poor thing to be starting again, and I a
lonesome fellow will be looking out on women and girls the way the
needy fallen spirits do be looking for the Lord?
PEGEEN: What call have you to be lonesome when there's poor girls
walking Mayo in their thousands now?
CHRISTY: It's well you know what call I have. It's well you know
it's a lonesome thing to be passing small towns with the lights
shining sideways when the night is down, or going in strange
places with a dog noising before you and a dog noising behind, or
drawn to the cities where you'd hear a voice kissing and talking
deep love in every shadow of the ditch, and you passing on with an
empty, hungry stomach failing from your heart.
PEGEEN: I'm thinking you're an odd man, Christy Mahon. The oddest
walking fellow I ever set my eyes on to this hour to-day.
CHRISTY: What would any be but odd men and they living lonesome in
the world?
The scene of all his plays is laid in a lonely place: the last cottage
at the head of a long glen in Wicklow; a small and remote island off
the west coast of Ireland; a distant hamlet in a mountainous district.
His people are possessed of a perpetual fear of death and old age,
and lead uneventful lives, having minds which continually crave for
the performance of splendid and unusual deeds. Few men have put their
longings and disappointments so boldly and plainly into their work as
John Synge put his. I do not suggest that an author may be identified
with every word and action of his creatures--a manifestly absurd
suggestion--but I do suggest that it is possible for an intelligent
reader to obtain a very clear and well-defined impression of the
character and beliefs of an author from a careful study of the whole
body of his work.