Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1989. 19/3. (Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 19)

Bertha, Csilla: Distortions of Character in John B. Keane's Peasant Plays

- 41 BERTHA 6 CSILLA DISTORIIONS OF CHARACTER IN JOIN B. KEANE 'S PEASANT PLAYS Writing peasant plays in the Europe of the second half of the 20th centruy sounds anachronistic. Yet in a country like Ireland, where - due to various external and internal circumstances - the ancient, basically rural form of life together with its values and traditions, survived well into the 20th ceotury, life itself produced material and inspiration for such plays. It is no surprise that the tradition of peasant drama in Ireland like in Hungary - is very strong. The peasants, as long as they lived in closed communities, structurally untouched by changing circumstances, were justly regarded - again, similarly to n«ny romantic, and realistic views in the Hungary of the last century as well as the first half of the twentieth - as those preserving the national cultural values, and, indeed, national identity. The literature that claimed to be national in spirit, was to be built on this culture - which was, of course, of special importance in countries struggling for cultural and political independence. Yeats, among others, makes it part of the programme for creating national drama at the turn of the century: "Every national dramatic movement or theatre in countries like Bohemia and Hungary, as in Elisabethan England, has arisen out of a study of the common people, who preserve national characteristics more than any other class." (1962:222) Accordingly, peasant or folk plays have constituted one of the main lines of Irish drama ever since. Yet reality, as well as attitudes to it, have changed from time to time. First, rural life was idealized (another feature familiar in Hungarian literature), later, or partly parallel, a more realistic and thus more contradictory vision was given by the greatest master of Irish peasant plays, Synge. He influenced later generations with his comic, ironic view, his grotesqueries and his indulgence in rich, colourful, graphic language, the eloquence and