Sean O'Casey

Bernard Benstock

1970
119 pages
ISBN 0-8387-7748-1
Irish Writers Series

Sean O'Casey is another outstanding contribution to the Irish Writers Series. These monographs have been designed to treat in individual volumes the significant Anglo-Irish writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. These studies will prove helpful to literary scholars and to students of literature. When complete the series will constitute a significant history of modern Anglo-Irish literature, encompass discussions of more than 50 writers.

The present volume treats in detail the best known and best loved of the Irish playwrights, bringing to bear on its famous subject contemporary critical insights, attitudes, and techniques. The author analyzes concisely the plot, character, and action of most of O'Casey's major dramatic works.

Also discussed are O'Casey's important autobiographical works. The author demonstrates how they related to the playwright's dramatic form. Of special value will be the discussion of "The O'Casey Touch," which proves that the playwright's settings and stage directions added to the overall dramatic impact of the plays.

About the author:

Bernard Benstock is Professor of English and Chairman of Graduate Studies at Kent State University. He has published extensively on modern Anglo-Irish literature, particularly on James Joyce, but also on O'Casey and Flann O'Brien. He is the author of Joyce-again's Wake: An Analysis of Finnegans Wake and coeditor of the forthcoming Approaches to Ulysses: Ten Essays. Articles on Irish literature have appeared in PMLA, ELH, Bucknell Review, James Joyce Quarterly (of which he is an advisory editor), Philological Quarterly, Southern Review, and Modern Fiction Studies.