Welsh Journals

RECENT ANGLO-CELTIC DRAMA. By Saunders Lewis. THOUGH the year that has passed has added practically nothing to our Welsh dramatic literature, it has been] for Anglo-Celtic drama a period of great richness in fact, at least three new books of plays were published' during the year 1921, which must in all likeliness become permanent additions to English letters. And here it is interesting to remark that we are probably nearing the close of a period in regional literature. Anglo-Celtic literature is almost entirely an Irish product. The other Celtic races have added very little to it there have been writers of English who were of Welsh blood or Manx or Scottish, but they were mostly English in outlook and education. Only the Irish, having lost their language, took up/ this weapon of English and gave it a new and utterly distinct accent and idiom, and made it the re- flection of their own minds and aspiration. It is beyondl doubt that they achieved this, but it is equally certain that they are now dissatisfied. James Stephens, himself one of the foremost of living English writers, has publicly recanted, and in the pages of the Saturday Review states that Irish men of letters are now determined to return to their own language, and to mould it into an adequate instrument for the ex- pression of modem Irish thought. Irish poets and thinkers will, he says, move entirely away from the sphere of English influence, and going to France and Italy for guidance, will make Irish again a literary language of European importance. If Mr. Stephens is right, then not only will Welshmen rub their mossy eyes in consternation, but Anglo-Celtic, as a distinct branch of English literature, will cease to exist. And the work of one of the writers whom it is now necessary to consider, suggests that this transition from English to Irish will not be very strange. For Mr. Daniel Corkery is already a bilingual writer, and he is recognised as one of the most interesting figures in the literary coteries of Dublin. All that I know of him is that he is still a young man, and that he has lived most of his life in County Cork and in the town of Cork in the South of Ireland. Perhaps he has travelled, and certainly, as his books show, he is familiar with the literatures of France and Germanv. But one learns these things accidentally. The only essential fact to know about him is that his culture and education are drawn first and last from his own country and from her history and traditions and language. He is steeped in the literature of Ireland, not the English literature about Ireland. but in the works of the poets and scholars who kept the Irish as the living expression of the people's most intimate thoughts until the end of the 18th century. And the fact that Corkery is bi- lingual affects his English style very deeply. I feel in reading his prose, and especially the prose of his plays. that I am reading something as strange as though it were written in another tongue. There is an intensity in his language, a constant use of imagery drawn from nature or from legend or from old poets, which is unlike anything in English whether in prose or verse. Some of Corkery's most moving passages strike one as though they were translations from some old and passionate lyric, where a poet had lavished every beautiful name and every remembered image in describing his love., One example will show my meaning. In one of his best plays, Corkery pictures an Irish chief, old and bereft of his lands and power, and reduced to misery, yet finding pride and conso- lation in an ancient manuscript that records the past greatness of his clan this is the old man's monologue over his book My treasure, my treasure. My world in which I am lost and yet at home. My music, in which I grow young and strong and free. My ship in which I escape from the crafty enemies that encompass me. My strong spear and shield of battle. My roof against the wind of the sea. My lamp, my lamp. My star, my sun, my hearth. Comrade and prince of conversation. My Spanish wine, my host, my board, feast and venison. Rose of merriment, lily of refinement. Text of chivalry." If you heard a good actor recite that on the stage, and be staring now at the book, and now vacantly as though into the past, you would understand that those images were not chosen haphazardly, but that each) one recalls some phase of the story and poetry and culture of Ireland and the dramatic value of the monologue is that it builds up through imagery all the stages of civilisation which culminated in an old man mumbling ecstatically over a manuscript. The twoi books by Daniel Corkery which should be in every library are The Yellow Bittern, and other Plays," and his earlier novel, The Threshold of Quiet." In the book of plays you will see what a fascination the 18th century has for him. The reason for this is that the 1 8th century saw the end of the purely Irish life of Ireland, and the change of tongue that followed began a new period in her history. Corkery is enraptured by the study of the time when Irish civilisation was vigorous and alive, but already threatened and on the verge of defeat like every artist, he is aware of the pity of all passing things. And his plays are the fruit of long meditation on the beauty and pathos of that life which passed away from his country with the death of the language. Clan Falvey is a play describing the last struggle of the old Irish aristocracy who represented the pure native civilisation, and would not for money or comfort compromise with the usurpers who robbed them of their lands. The Yellow Bittern is a study of the religious life of the people during the same period, and of the wandering poets whose satire and lyric were a legend and a force through the land. Both plays are in prose, but it is the prose of translated lyric. Through it all you may hear the tone and accent of the dead Irish poets. To discuss the novel is outside the purpose of this essay. But The Threshold of Quiet splendidly supplements the book of plays. It is art intimate study of contemporary Ireland, and might perhaps be called