Brendan Behan

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Brendan Behan

The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition | 2008 | The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. Copyright 2008 Columbia University Press. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Brendan Behan , 1923-64, Irish dramatist. A notoriously outspoken and uninhibited man, he joined the Irish Republican Army in 1937 and was twice imprisoned for political offenses. His first play, The Quare Fellow (1956), a grimly comic drama set in the hours preceding a prison hanging, was followed by The Hostage (1958), a song and dance farce set in a brothel. Brendan Behan's Island: an Irish Sketch-Book (1962) is a miscellaneous collection.

Bibliography: See his autobiographical Borstal Boy (1958); biographies by his brother Dominic Behan (1966) and U. O'Connor (1971).

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Behan, Brendan

World Encyclopedia | 2005 | © World Encyclopedia 2005, originally published by Oxford University Press 2005. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Behan, Brendan (1923–64) Irish writer, notorious for his riotous lifestyle. Behan became a member of the IRA at the age of 14 and served several years in reform school, as described in his autobiography Borstal Boy (1958). His first play, The Quare Fellow, was produced in 1954. Influenced by the work of Brecht, his second play was The Hostage (1959).
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Behan, Brendan

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | | © The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature 2003, originally published by Oxford University Press 2003. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Behan, Brendan (1923–64), Irish playwright, was arrested in 1939 for his involvement with the IRA, and his subsequent period of Borstal training is described in his autobiographical Borstal Boy (1958). His best-known works are The Hostage (1958), a tragi-comedy about an English soldier held hostage in a Dublin brothel, and The Quare Fellow (1956), set in an Irish prison on the eve of a hanging.
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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Behan, Brendan." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 9 Jul. 2009 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Behan, Brendan." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (July 9, 2009). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-BehanBrendan.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Behan, Brendan." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved July 09, 2009 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-BehanBrendan.html

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Newspaper article from: Sussex Express Series (Lewes, England); 5/23/2007; 79 words ; Lewes Theatre Club is desperate to get its hands on a set of bag pipes. In July it is performing The Hostage by Brendan Behan, a play which features an old Anglo-Irishman who plays the pipes very badly. Dudley Ward, who plays the piper, said... Read more
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Magazine article from: The Literary Review; 6/22/1997; ; 95 words ; ...Donegal and lives in Galway. Her first collection, Oar, (Salmon, 1990; Poolbeg, 1994, 1995) was the winner of the 1991 Brendan Behan Prize--awarded annually for the best first collection published in Ireland. In 1995, she was editor of Poetry Ireland... Read more
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Magazine article from: Real Estate Weekly; 1/30/2002; ; 700+ words ; ...completed. Through the years the Chelsea Hotel's residents have included such luminaries as Thomas Wolfe, Dylan Thomas, Brendan Behan, Mark Twain, O. Henry, Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Sarah Bernhardt, Virgil Thompson, Jackson Pollack, Bob Dylan... Read more
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Magazine article from: Style; 9/22/1999; ; 700+ words ; ...quare in his shrewdly chosen title to suggest, but not quite assert the queer, one of his models being the title of Brendan Behan's play The Quare Fellow. Valente also reads square, or straight, in quare. In this way, as he indicates, the epithet... Read more
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Magazine article from: Industrial Management; 7/1/2004; ; 700+ words ; ...fact, the subject of absence is as old as civilization, from Homer exclaiming Achilles absent was Achilles still to Brendan Behan's practical observation that I was court-martialed in my absence, and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they... Read more
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Magazine article from: The Literary Review; 6/22/1997; ; 146 words ; ...Donegal and lives in Galway. Her first collection, Oar, (Salmon, 1990; Poolbeg, 1994, 1995) was the winner of the 1991 Brendan Behan Prize--awarded annually for the best first collection published in Ireland. In 1995, she was editor of Poetry Ireland... Read more
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Newspaper article from: Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, MA); 10/11/2008; 521 words ; ...Respect echoes through the decades. I first latched onto it when my wife-to-be belted it out in a college production of Brendan Behan's The Hostage in 1967 in Tallahassee, Fla., and again when our 13-year-old daughter seven years ago sang it in an intergenerational... Read more

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