In barely twenty pages, J. M. Synge created one of the most perfectly constructed one-act tragedies in the language. Set among fishing families on the Aran Islands, Riders to the Sea follows the old woman Maurya as she loses her last son to the Atlantic — a loss she has been dreading since the sea took her husband and five other sons before him.
First produced in 1904, the play captures the rhythms of Irish-English speech with an ear for lament that gives it almost mythic weight. This free EPUB is formatted for any e-reader.