John M. Synge started his career with poetry imitating Wordsworth which didn’t give him fame or fortune. World least expected to get a great dramatist out of him at that point of time. Only by middle age, he started exploring the dramatist in him. Synge was a true patriot who preferred kingdom of Ireland to kingdom of God. He was slowly developing atheist spirit which the contemporaries especially Maud Gonne. The deeply religious Gonne rejected so many of Synge’s manuscripts.
His first collection of works is a poetic collection by name “Kottabos: A College Miscellany. Because of the over influence of Wordsworth, the collection was almost an imitation and rejected by readers. His other interest was in music, which he stopped after having a bad experience at a solo performance.
It was at the same time he miserably failed to get his lady love Cherrie Matheron. The rejection of love had a prolonged impact in him. His first play is based on his failed love affair – “When The Moon Has Set.” When the manuscripts were sent to Irish literary figures like Lady Gregory and Maud Gonne, they rejected them pointing out the absence of morality. The famous play portrayed a Nun leaving a nunnery to marry a rich man. Synge depicted the situations realistically without hypocrisy. In the play the Nun is purely fictitious, but critics say the rich man is Synge’s persona. All the emotions of his sad love affair come in this play. But catholic Ireland couldn’t accept the liberal attitude of Synge.
An enlarged gland in his neck made him rest for sometime before writing his great plays. The rejection of the first play left him hopeless and skeptic about his career as a playwright. He even planned to leave Ireland and settle in Paris where he thought public will be more patient and tolerant. In one museum in Paris Synge happen to meet the literary giant of his time, W. B. Yeats. They had lengthy conversation about Ireland and Irish folklore. From Yeats, Synge