About Telling: Ghosts and Hauntings in Contemporary Drama and Poetry
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Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 8-24-2015 12:00 AM About Telling: Ghosts and Hauntings in Contemporary Drama and Poetry Leif Erik Schenstead-Harris The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Dr Steven Bruhm The University of Western Ontario Joint Supervisor Dr Jonathan Boulter The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in English A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Doctor of Philosophy © Leif Erik Schenstead-Harris 2015 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons Recommended Citation Schenstead-Harris, Leif Erik, "About Telling: Ghosts and Hauntings in Contemporary Drama and Poetry" (2015). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 3091. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/3091 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. ABOUT TELLING: GHOSTS AND HAUNTINGS IN CONTEMPORARY DRAMA AND POETRY (Thesis format: Monograph) by Leif Schenstead-Harris Graduate Program in English Studies A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada © Leif Schenstead-Harris 2015 Abstract It is difficult to think of something as formally resistant to definition as a ghost. What is more ambiguous than something described as “haunting”? Few currents in literature have been as prominent – and as comparatively unmarked – as our critical and literary dependence on the language of spectrality. While ghost stories in prose have gained substantial attention, in drama and poetry ghosts and hauntings have found less critical purchase. In response, this dissertation takes up a selection of drama and poetry from Ireland, South Africa, and the Caribbean to illustrate the theoretical and critical potential of ghosts and ghost stories in twentieth-century Anglophone world literatures. Selections are picked for their illustrative potential and thematic richness. The texts constellate a dazzling range of ghosts and ghost stories used by their authors to creatively reflect and investigate the metaphoric play of hauntings and spectrality in epistemological and literary discourses. The first half of “About Telling” examines ghost stories as performances on the theatrical stage that raise questions of relation and narrative (in Conor McPherson’s The Weir), nation and song (in Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats…), globalizing technologies and economic change (in Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona’s Sizwe Banzi is Dead), theatre as technology (in Samuel Beckett’s Shades trilogy) and, finally, mourning and the lament (in J.M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea and Derek Walcott’s The Sea at Dauphin). Each chapter re- envisions the relationship between drama, narrative, and ghosts. The second half of “About Telling” turns to poetry and questions of lyric theory: tradition and spectropoetics (in Eavan Boland), gothic prosopopoeia (in Breyten Breytenbach), lyric experimentation (in Samuel Beckett), and ekphrastic addresses (in the discrete responses of David Dabydeen and NourbeSe Philip) to the history of the Zong. Once decreated, poetry’s intense pressure on meaning-making in language reveals – not stories – but ghosts. Refusing transcendental definitions of ghosts and hauntings, this dissertation suggests that the manifold significance of terms such as “ghosts” and “haunting” organizes formal readings of poetry and drama in a recognizable heuristic available for extrapolation and change. It concludes, if such a word is possible, that language affords the resources for ghosts to enter and survive in our world. Keywords Ghosts, hauntings, theatre, poetry, stories, world literature. ii Acknowledgments Many thanks are due to the faculty and staff at the University of Western Ontario, where much of this dissertation was written on scraps of paper and in fragments of conversation… as well as through the more traditional practice of hitting one’s head against a keyboard until one or the other breaks and is replaced. Steven Bruhm and Jonathan Boulter, my supervisors, are due special thanks. They have my deepest gratitude for their inspiring and critical mentorship, and also for their great patience with this document – and with me. Călin-Andrei Mihăilescu’s irrepressible wisdom has no equal. Leanne Trask’s indefatigable cheer aided greatly while addressing administrative uncertainties, and I am confident in her supreme ability to negotiate any proposed labyrinth. The tenacity and care of my committee of examiners was greatly appreciated: Kim Solga, Taiwo Adetunji Osinubi, and Stephen Slemon, you have my respect and greatest thanks. What errors, cautions, and limitations remain are the sole preserve of my own intransigence and, quite possibly, stubbornness. More could be said. It should be said in person. The support of friends and colleagues both in and outside the academy has aided my work. There are many to thank – too many for the present enumeration. Even so, I would like to publicly note that Zeinab McHeimech’s generosity knows no bounds. So too Will Samson’s laughter, Kamran Ahmed’s joy, Yuri Forbes-Petrovich’s enthusiasm, and Mélissa LeBlanc’s care. The support of these people and more has been both humbling and powerful during the preparation of this document. Research finds strength and encounters challenge in teaching too, and I am lucky to have taught incredibly enthusiastic, demanding, and intelligent students while at the University of Western Ontario. The spirited intervention of my English 3882G class came at a crucial time – as this document took final shape – and demands my sincere gratitude. Faith, confidence, and joy have value that extends beyond language. These remarks only go so far. My memory regards many with admiration and acknowledges more. Some influences come from those I have not known and cannot – except through the trace of their words and the memory of their histories. Financial support of this research through SSHRC and the Ontario Graduate Scholarship has been generous and necessary, and I am grateful for this investment in my work. My parents have made everything possible. Without them, I would have nothing. No thanks will prove sufficient. I do not regret going into English. If I have been given much, I owe much more. I often remember the notorious phrase: “If you don’t know, now you know.” What follows is knotted and gnarled; it is spun from fabrics of many colours and weaves together textures that appear sometimes rough and oddly striated. Happily, a dissertation is an assemblage and not a living being, a vision’s constellation and never a master’s command, a trace to retrace only willingly. By necessity it will be undone. iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................ ii Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................... iv List of Figures ................................................................................................................................. vi Preface ............................................................................................................................................ vii 1 Introduction: Speaking of Ghosts ........................................................................................... 1 1.1 Purpose, Method, Definitions ......................................................................................... 1 1.2 Talking Ghosts: On Ghost Stories and Criticism ....................................................... 26 2 How to Tell A Ghost Story .................................................................................................... 45 2.1 Field Survey: A Brief History of Ghost Stories and the Theatre ............................... 45 2.2 Major Argument: About Telling Ghost Stories .......................................................... 52 2.3 Speaking of Ghosts: Conor McPherson’s The Weir ................................................... 61 2.4 An Irish Gothic: Marina Carr’s By the Bog of Cats… ................................................. 76 2.5 Staging South African Photography and the Ghost of Sizwe Banzi ......................... 90 2.6 A Haunting Machine: Theatrical Technologies and Samuel Beckett’s Shades ..... 108 2.7 Haunting Oceans, Mourning Languages: J.M. Synge and Derek Walcott ............ 135 3 Witness to Ghosts ................................................................................................................. 155 3.1 Field Survey: Transnational Poetics and the Globalgothic ..................................... 155 3.2 Major Argument: Voice, Medium, Rhythm, and the Poetry of Dead Metaphors162 3.3 Eavan Boland and the Haunted Chorus .................................................................... 187 3.4 Breyten Breytenbach and the Afrikaans Gothic ......................................................