‘A Kinda Trinitarian Soul’: Sean O’Casey and the Art of Autobiography

Abstract

The Autobiographies of Sean O’Casey,² published originally from 1939 to 1954, at intervals of about three years, comprise six volumes — nearly 1/2 million words, by far the bulk of the Irish playwright’s literary production. Yet only the first four, the Irish Books (I Knock at the Door, Pictures in the Hallway, Drums under the Windows, and Inishfallen, Fare Thee Well), exemplify autobiography as genre; the last two, the Books of Exile (Rose and Crown and Sunset and Evening Star), are not autobiography but blends of reminiscence and memoir differing in structure, point of view, and major theme from what precedes them. There are, moreover, signs in the fourth of the Irish Books which predict O’Casey’s eventual abandonment of the genre.