Gregory, Isabella Augusta

Gregory, Isabella Augusta 

(maiden name, Persse). Born Mar. 5, 1852, in Roxborough. County Galway; died May 22. 1932, in Coole, County Galway. Irish playwright. Figure of the “Irish renaissance.”

Gregory participated in the founding of the Abbey Theater (1904), on whose opening day her comedy Rumors was staged. She collected Irish folklore and translated it into English in the collections Cuchulain of Muirthenne (1902) and Gods and Fighting Men (1904). The comedy The Rising of the Moon (1907) deals with the Fenian political movement. In the folk-historical play Kincora (1905), Gregory portrayed the 11th-century Irish struggle against the Norman conquerors. The action of the play The White Cockade (1905) takes place after the defeat of the Irish in a battle with the English on the Boyne River (1690). In the play The Liberator (1911), Moses is an allegorical symbol representing the fate of C. S. Parnell, the leader of the Irish national movement. The tragedy Grania (1912) was based on the plot of an ancient Irish epic. After the unfortunate outcome of the Irish Rebellion of 1916, Gregory moved away from reality in her works (for example, the fairy-tale play-fantasy The Dragon, 1919).

WORKS

Lady Gregory’s Journals. 1916–1930. Edited by L. Robinson. London, 1946.
In Russian translation:
Kogda vzoidet mesiats. Moscow, 1922. (Translated from English.)

REFERENCES

Ellis-Fermor, U. The Irish Dramatic Movement. London, 1954.
Lady Gregory: A Literary Portrait. New York, 1961.