It is in many ways rewarding to approach Juno and the Paycock together with The Plough and the Stars and The Shadow of a Gunman as a cycle of political and social plays conceived on an epic scale and deeply tinged by an overall tragic vision; a trilogy similar in some respects to Shakespeare's cycle comprising Richard II, Henry IV (two parts), and Richard III. In each series individual plays, though self-contained and complete in themselves, are more meaningful in conjunction with the other plays relating to their particular cycle, and, together with them, add up to a panoramic view of a country in a state of crisis. Of course Shakespeare's plays are more consciously shaped as chronicles of an age, a particular period of history, than are O'Casey's…. O'Casey wrote of the lives and struggles of ordinary men and women at a particular time of social upheaval, and in the process gave the drama something of an epic compass, realising a social and political content that is far wider and deeper than is apparent at first sight.
In chronological order of the subject-matter, The Plough and the Stars (1915–1916), The Shadow of a Gunman (1920), and Juno and the Paycock (1922) cover the most momentous events in recent Irish history, not from the point of view of the political or military leaders, but from that of the ordinary people unwillingly caught up in the indiscriminate savagery and recrimination of civil war and revolution. It is as though Ralph Mouldy, Peter Bullcalf, Francis Feeble and their families were at the centre of the dramatic action (with Bardolph, Nym, and Doll Tearsheet as minor characters) instead of Prince Hal and Hotspur. (pp. 77-8)
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