J. M. Synge

John Millington Synge was born in 1871 near Dublin into a Protestant landowning family. After studying at Trinity College Dublin and later in Germany and Paris, he was encouraged by W. B. Yeats to immerse himself in the Aran Islands, where he absorbed the dialect and folklore that would define his work. His major plays, including "Riders to the Sea" (1904), "The Well of the Saints" (1905), and the landmark "The Playboy of the Western World" (1907), combined lyrical language with raw, unsentimental portrayals of peasant life. The latter caused riots at its Abbey Theatre premiere for its perceived mockery of Irish ideals. Synge also wrote the unfinished "Deirdre of the Sorrows" before dying of Hodgkin's disease at age 37. His influence endures in modern Irish drama and in his elevation of vernacular speech to high art.