Eglantina Remport’s research while affiliated with Eötvös Loránd University and other places

Location always matters – especially in Irish drama. Drawing on the spatial theories of Michael Issacharoff, Hélène Laliberté and Ruth Ronen, the article investigates the unique interplay between dramatic space and the thematic concept of the universal in three Irish plays: Augusta Gregory’s The Workhouse Ward (1908), Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot (1953/55) and Frank McGuinness’s Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme (1985). I trace a special line of influence between these plays through the lens of spatial theory, and further the discussion of the geographies of Irish drama as examined in Chris Morash and Shaun Richard’s Mapping Irish Theatre: Theories of Space and Place (2013).

Ruskin’s work is strongly inscribed in the great European context, marking an important moment in the movement for the establishment of a community culture and spirit. The essays collected here intend to place the theme of Ruskin’s fruitful and essential relationship with Europe at the centre of a critical reflection, presenting themselves as opportunities for an in-depth study and a discussion on issues related to aesthetics, the protection of material and immaterial heritage, cultural and literary memory. By bringing to the attention of the scientific community the multiple aspects – geographic, historical-artistic, critical-aesthetic, literary, socio-political – of Ruskin’s work from inter- and transcultural perspectives, the volume aims to (re)discover a deliberately European Ruskin and to stimulate new research routes.

Patrick Pearse’s editorial in the journal of the Gaelic League, An Claidheamh Soluis, is the starting point of this essay that explores Irish perceptions of the Hungarian language question as it panned out during the early nineteenth century. Arthur Griffith’s The Resurrection of Hungary: A Parallel for Ireland (1904), to which Pearse refers in his editorial, is the focal point of the discussion, with the pamphlet’s/book’s reference to Count István Széchenyi’s offer of his one-year land revenue to further the cause of the Hungarian language at the Hungarian Diet of Pozsony (present-day Bratislava) in 1825. Széchenyi’s aspirations are examined in the essay in comparison with the ideals of Baron József Eötvös, Minister of Religious and Educational Affairs (1848; 1867–71), in order to indicate the strong connection that existed between the question of language use and religious and educational matters in Hungary. Similar issues were discussed in Ireland during the nineteenth century, providing further points of reference between Ireland and Hungary in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. Finally, the debate between language revivalists and reformists is studied in some detail, comparing the case of Hungary between the 1790s and the 1840s with that of Ireland between the 1890s and the 1920s.

Edward Gordon Craig and W. B. Yeats’s early work for the stage bears the clear influence of English landscape artist J. M. W. Turner as he was viewed by Victorian art critic John Ruskin. The article traces this influence as it unfolds during the first decade of the twentieth century when Craig and Yeats’s leave behind theatrical realism for a more dramatic use of light and shade on stage, realised as part of an architectonic concept that was suffused with transcendental symbolism. Among other plays, Dido and Aeneas, The Vikings at Helgeland, The Shadowy Waters and The Hour-Glass are studied against Turner’s The Old Téméraire and The Slave Ship as they had been evaluated in Ruskin’s Modern Painters. Finally, Craig and Yeats’s scenic ideals are compared to those of European theatre-makers Adolphe Appia and Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, who set out to re-think and revise the grandiose scenic concepts of German composer Richard Wagner. The article argues that Craig and Yeats’s mission during this decade was to realise what came to be termed the “Theatre of Mood”.

Remport provides the most far-reaching examination to date of noblesse oblige in the work of Lady Gregory. She presents an extraordinary new assessment of Gregory’s version of the Cuchulain legend in her Irish mythological writings. Remport discloses how Gregory modelled the Irish mythical warrior Cuchulain on British politicians Lord Wellesley, Sir Robert Peel, and William Gladstone. For the first time, Lady Gregory’s versions of Irish mythology are placed in relation to Heinrich Schliemann’s ground-breaking archaeological work in Greece on sources for the works of Homer, Lady Gregory having met Schliemann during her travels. Remport contextualises this in terms of the Hellenic Revival of the fin de siècle and Gregory’s interest in the London revival of ancient Greek ‘toga plays’ under the influence of John Ruskin.

Remport identifies the traumatic impact of the First World War on Lady Gregory, an impact that changed her world completely. Most significant were the deaths of her son Robert in Italy in January 1918 while serving as a fighter pilot, and that of her nephew Hugh Lane, who was on board the Lusitania when it was sunk by German submarines in 1915. Remport reflects on Lady Gregory’s struggle to secure Lane’s major art collection for a Dublin museum space. She concludes with a moving account of the gradual loss of Coole Park because of financial pressures, and the effect that the violence in Ireland had on Lady Gregory’s idea of reconciliation from the 1916 Rising to the Irish Civil War of the 1920s.

Aesthetic debates concerning relations between the Sister Arts featured prominently among English Victorian thinkers and artists. Questions regarding the moral nature of art were persistent, particularly in the writings of Ruskin. Remport situates Lady Gregory’s ideas on the staging of her plays in this context. She considers the influence on Lady Gregory of narrative painting that Ruskin admired for its didactic ends. Remport traces Gregory’s use of tableaux vivants and narrative techniques in her plays to such narrative painting. She draws contrasts between Lady Gregory’s work and the staging of plays by W. B. Yeats and J. M. Synge at the Abbey Theatre in the 1900s. In so doing, Remport illustrates Ruskin’s distinctive influence on Lady Gregory’s plays.

Remport illustrates the importance of the Irish Co-operative Movement to Lady Gregory’s social and cultural values. She shows the close connections between Ruskin’s ideas on social reform and those of leading figures in the Irish Co-operative Movement. Remport addresses the link between the social and economic philosophy of the Co-operative Movement and Gregory’s work for the National Theatre in Ireland in terms of character formation. Furthermore, Remport identifies the shaping of individual and national character through drama as an important point of connection between proposals for a National Theatre in England and Lady Gregory’s hopes for an Irish National Theatre. In the process, Remport illustrates the influence that Ruskin’s ideas on art and society had for supporters of National Theatre both in England and Ireland.

Remport describes in detail one of the most important yet one of the most neglected aspects of Lady Gregory’s life: her Grand Tours of art galleries and museums across Europe with her husband Sir William Gregory. Remport demonstrates that her travels with Sir William were of enormous significance to her deep involvement with cultural activities in Ireland after the death of her husband, most famously through her co-directorship of the Abbey Theatre and the plays that she wrote for it. Discussing the many art works that she viewed with her husband during visits to Italy, Greece, France, and Spain, Remport illustrates the formation of Lady Gregory’s artistic sensibility and the esteemed position in the upper echelons of late nineteenth-century London society that she acquired through these Grand Tours.