Abstract
While Ernst Toller’s connections with Britain have received considerable attention in recent years,1 the Irish dimension of the ‘Fall Toller’ has never been looked at in detail before. This can hardly be surprising as Toller never set foot on Irish soil and his references to Ireland are very scanty indeed. We know from a letter to the Irish dramatist Denis Johnston that he would have loved to spend some time in Ireland.2 In an interview with a British journalist he indicated that Sean O’Casey’s Juno and the Paycock made a strong impression on him.3 It is also well known that Toller had a particular interest in having his Blind Goddess turned into an Irish play (though we don’t know why).4 It is certainly regrettable in this context that his film script about the Irish-born dancer Lola Montez, which might have contained some references to Ireland, is lost. Overall, the material is insufficient to allow any statement about Toller’s image of Ireland. The main contacts he had with Ireland were through a small number of Irish writers he met, among them the novelist and political activist Peadar O’Donnell,5 the father figure of Anglo-Irish literature of the 1920s and 1930s William Butler Yeats, and most importantly Denis Johnston.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
E.g. Richard Dove, ‘The Place of Ernst Toller in English Socialist Theatre 1924–1939’, German Life and Letters, 38, 1985, p. 125–37
Richard Dove, ‘The British Connection: Aspects of the Biography of Ernst Toller’, German Life and Letters, 40,1987, p. 319–33
N. A. Furness, ‘The Reception of Ernst Toller and his Works in Britain’, in Richard Sheppard (ed.), Expressionism in Focus (Blairgowrie, 1987), p. 171–97.
J. S. Scott Whyte, ‘German Literature in Ireland (1919–1939)’ Hermathena, 73, May 1949, p. 10–24.
Patrick O’Neill, Ireland and Germany: A Study in Literary Relations, (New York, Berne, Frankfurt/M, 1985), p. 202.
Lambert McKenna, ‘The Bolshevik Revolution in Munich’, Studies, 12, 1923, p. 361–77.
Andrew E. Malone [= Lawrence P. Byrne], ‘The Youngest Drama’, Dublin Magazine, May 1924, p. 889.
Some critics maintain that this was the first introduction the dramatist got to Toller’s drama. A letter to Lady Gregory of August 1924, however, reveals that he had read the play before he saw it performed. Cf. Sean O’Casey, The Letters of Sean O’Casey 1910–41, vol. I, ed. by David Krause (London, 1975), p. 118f.
Gabriel Fallon, Sean O’Casey. The Man I Knew (London, 1965), p. 47.
The most thorough analysis is probably Carol Kleiman, ‘O’Casey’s Debt to Toller: Expressionism in The Silver Tassie and Red Roses for Me’, The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, 6, 1979, p. 70.
O’Casey’s review of Toller’s Seven Plays is also of interest in this context: reprinted in Wolfgang Frühwald and John M. Spalek (eds), Der Fall Toller. Kommentar und Materialien (Munich and Vienna, 1979) p. 206f.
Cf. Grattan Freyer, ‘Ireland’s Contribution’, in Boris Ford (ed.), The Modern Age (The Pelican Guide to English Literature, 7) Harmondsworth, 1973, p. 208.
Quoted in Christine St. Peter, ‘The Old Lady: in principio’, in Joseph Ronsley (ed.), Denis Johnston: A Retrospective (Gerrards Cross, 1981) p. 20.
Joseph Holloway mentions the meeting in his diary. Cf. Joseph Holloway, Joseph Holloway’s Irish Theatre, ed. Robert Hogan and Michael J. O’Neill, vol. I (Dixon, Cal., 1968) p. 46.
Cf. Ludwig Hoffmann and Curt Trepte, ‘Exil in Skandinavien’, in Exil in der Tschechoslowakei, in Grofβbritannien, Skandinavien und Palästina (Frankfurt/M, 1981) p. 530f., on Toiler’s Ossietzky campaign.
Ethel Mannin, Privileged Spectator (London, 1939) p. 83.
Letter to Ethel Mannin, 2 April 1935. Reprinted in W. B. Yeats, The Letters of W. B. Yeats, ed. by Allan Wade (London, 1954) p. 834
Mike Milotte, Communism in Modern Ireland (Dublin, 1984) p. 147.
John P. Fox, ‘Das nationalsozialistische Deutschland und die Emigration in Großbritannien’, in Gerhard Hirschfeld (ed.), Exil in Groβbritannien (Stuttgart, 1983) p. 36.
Brendan Behan refers to the demonstration in an early draft of ‘Bridewell Revisited’. Cf. Colbert Kearney, The Writings of Brendan Behan (Dublin, 1977) p. 93.
Quoted from Harold Ferrar, Denis Johnston’s Irish Theatre (Dublin, 1973) p. 85.
Ernst Toiler and Denis Johnston, Blind Man’s Buff (London, 1938) p. 122.
John M. Spalek, Ernst Toller and his Critics: A Bibliography (Charlottesville, 1968) items nos. 1006–9, 1018.
Máirtín O. Cadhain, As an nGéibheann (Dublin, 1973) p. 130f.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1992 Richard Dove and Stephen Lamb
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fischer, J. (1992). Ernst Toller and Ireland. In: Dove, R., Lamb, S. (eds) German Writers and Politics 1918–39. Warwick Studies in the European Humanities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11815-1_13
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11815-1_13
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-11817-5
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-11815-1
eBook Packages: Palgrave Literature & Performing Arts CollectionLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)