Excerpt from The Contemporary Drama of Ireland: By Richard Burton the Contemporary Drama of IrelandIt is doubtful, however, if the creation of a national drama was ever the main purpose of the enterprise. W. B. Yeats certainly had this Object in view, but both his coadjutors were far more concerned to facili tate the production of literary drama, without special reference to its nationality. Consequently the plays produced re¿ect, as we shall see, this double tendency. Yeats, with the almost negligible support of Alice Milligan, represented the character which the Irish Theatre was subsequently to assume, whereas Martyn and Moore stood for the more cosmopolitan drama Of ideas which they had learned to admire in London. The institution which they conceived would have given room to the poetic and folk plays of Yeats's ambition, but only on the same terms as would have been accorded to Chekhov or Strindberg. Elements Of dissolution were contained in this clash of motives, so that the association of effort lasted only long enough to lay the foundation of the movement which was to give us a national theatre.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.