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Gypsy Imageries in the Work of Van Morrison Fecha de recepción: 1 septiembre 2019 Fecha de aceptación: 4 octubre 2019 Fecha de publicación: 9 febrero 2020 URL: https://oceanide.es/index.php/012020/article/view/39/182 Oceánide número 13, ISSN 1989-6328 DOI: https://doi.org/10.37668/oceánide.v13i.39 Dr. Eduardo Barros Grela Universidade da Coruña, España ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7533-5580 Dra. María Bobadilla Pérez Universidade da Coruña, España ORCID: https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-4972-5980 Transpopular Spaces: Gypsy Imageries in the Work of Van Morrison Resumen La obra del autor norirlandés Van Morrison ha pasado relativamente desapercibida por la crítica a pesar de los numerosos elementos sociales, literarios y artísticos que presenta. Entre ellos se encuentra la representación de la figura del gitano como modelo de actuación para unas generaciones de oyentes a quienes les preocupaba el aspecto cultural a la contra, así como los modelos de vida alternativos a los legitimados por la clase media de la época. El objetivo de este estudio es analizar el componente romantizado que se presenta en la obra de Morrison alrededor de su representación del gitanismo, así como observar cómo esos elementos generan primero una función deontologizante y después una resignificación de los espacios en tránsito ocupados por la(s) imaginación(es) de esta comunidad como pueblo nómada. Para llevar a cabo el análisis se atenderá a varias canciones de la primera época del autor norirlandés, y se explicarán las funciones de representación del gitano en el entorno del espacio y de una epistemología contracultural. Palabras clave: Van Morrison; espacio; gitanos; contracultura; música Abstract The work of Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison has gone relatively unnoticed by critics despite the numerous social, literary and artistic elements included in his songs. Among them is the representation of the figure of the Gypsy as a model of action for generations of listeners who were concerned about countercultural dynamics, as well as alternative life models to those that were legitimized by the middle class of the time. The objective of this study is to analyze the romanticized component that is presented in Morrison's work around his conceptualization of gypsyism, as well as to observe how these elements generate, firstly, a deontologizing function in the Gypsy figure, and then a resignification of the spaces in transit occupied by the imagination(s) of this community as a nomadic people. To carry out this analysis, several songs from the first albums of the Northern Irish author will be examined, and we will explain the function of representing the Gypsy in the countercultural spatial environment of their epistemology. Keywords: Van Morrison; space; Gypsies; counterculture; music OCEÁNIDE | 13_2020 44 nd the caravan is painted red and white research project of going into the analysis of the Gypsy in the That means everybody’s staying overnight work of the Northern Irish singer-songwriter. The latter implies Barefoot gypsy player round the campfire sing an act of faith, as well as the coherent response to an unavoidable A and play academic concern. And a woman tells us of her ways. The factors against a critical analysis of these characteristics are Caravan, Van Morrison easily observable from different approaches. Firstly, despite the fact that the Cultural Studies discipline has endowed popular culture with a critical and theoretical apparatus of great relevance In 1998, as newly incorporated students into a doctoral program of (Agger 2014, 70; Samuels 2009, 133) in recent years, the academic cultural and literary studies in New York, one of the first courses justification of this study might still be perceived with some we studied was entitled “European Gypsies”, and was taught suspicion. The study of a discursive production aimed at popular by two professors who would over the years become our theses consumption, such as the songs written by Van Morrison, is still directors.1 Having just arrived from the social sphere of Spain, considered non-consequential by some traditional critics (Shuker and with a cultural image that was not yet distanced from our 2016, 26). Despite the fact that Morrison’s music has managed to own epistemology, we were absorbed by the discussions that took gain access to a prestigious niche in his field of consumption, his place around the identity and aesthetic image of “gypsyism”. They entrance as an object of analysis in university classrooms or in seemed to us clearly romanticized and not very accurate revisions research areas of greater impact has been mostly marginal.4 of the subjectivized reality of the Gypsy from the peninsular epistemology. But after reading several critical approaches on the On the other hand, there is an identity distance between the topic, which generated keen discussions, our critical and cultural ethnic and cultural perceptions of the gypsies, as interpreted sensitivity was modified and provided us with new peripheral by Morrison in his songs, and the Gypsy culture that has been readings that opened our minds on the subject. The representation imposed as a standard in the aesthetic representations of this of gypsyism came then as a discourse of identity production, but ethnic group. Clearly, the analytical difficulties derived from also as a refuge against the politics of identity. Our questioning of this distance is overcome through a current anthropological legitimate essentialisms thus became a new focus in our research. perspective. It becomes necessary to question the common features that different social conventions have used, not to represent but In a critical space such as the one that emerged around the identity to produce this – or other – ethnic group. In current theoretical construction of the Gypsy, we could observe that the poetic trends there is commitment to celebrate the ethnic differences production of Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison, at as a way to weaken the acculturizing – and therefore hegemonic that time frequently discussed in the culturalist analysis of Irish – interpretations of what the concept of difference really means. popular culture (McLoone 2008, 63), brought significant attention to gypsyism in and around that collective identity which lived In this sense, the historiographic, literary, and often romanticized in a permanent state of interrogation. Morrison’s contributions representation of the subject associated with the Gypsy ethnicity brought about a great critical richness to the distinctly different has been consolidated in what López-Morillas identifies in Lorca levels of the observation and study of gypsyism (Mills 2010, 14). as an aesthetic of myth, not of ideas (1980, 314). In this sense, What is more, they did so in a line of immersion similar to what the present study proposes a critical approach to the discussion was frequently observed in nineteenth century studies, and, around the representability of the Gypsy identity from an Irish because of their relevance, they too deserved a discussion about epistemology. Throughout the analysis of Morrison’s references Gypsies and otherness. to gypsyism in his lyrics, we focus on the identification of its actanciality as a performance of an extrinsic imagery, assimilated by In the year 2019, more than twenty years later and with a the culture associated with the Gypsy ethnicity as an idiosyncratic growing curiosity on the subject, we have set out to order these feature. critical annotations and comments, and we decided to consider from a distance the operation of Morrison’s poetic productions As we were saying, throughout the different aesthetic stages in around the figure of the Gypsy. Observing both his production which the figure of the Gypsy has been novelized, the Romani of imaginary identities and its aesthetic and axiological culture has experienced a tendency to be associated with a exoticization, during this long period our research on the topic “romanticized” image of its subjects, but also with a marginal and was culminated with the publication of an article on gypsyism abject image, frequently fuelled by the social imagery that has in the work of D.H. Lawrence, The Virgin and the Gipsy (Barros normally developed around and in opposition to it. Such is the Grela 2011), which included the analysis of several Van Morrison’s case of some nineteenth-century writers, admirers of travellers songs from a comparatist approach. As an antecedent to this and vagrancy, for example George Borrow (1923) or George Smith study, it should also be mentioned that the work carried out by of Coalville (1883), as well as their best-known successor, the the Research Group of Irish Studies at the University of Coruña, Irish scholar of gypsyism, Walter Starkie (1894–1976). These are around the transnational relevance of Irish popular culture, has historians, ethnographers, and travellers who base their reflections underpinned this renewal of our interest in the musical work of about the Gypsies on their own experiences after having undergone the composer from Belfast.2 a direct observation of their customs. In their works, it becomes evident that the epistemological distance between the observer As suggested in the aforementioned article, the study of a subject and the observed is only marginally mitigated. Nevertheless, that is so seldom frequented in academia as the representation the hermeneutical nature of these descriptive and performative of “gypsyism” in the work of D. H. Lawrence3 was an innovation narratives is of great interest to the researcher who is concerned which required a healthy dose of research temerity. Nevertheless, with the identity production of gypsyism from a perspective of this approach is not comparable with the more challenging otherness. OCEÁNIDE | 13_2020 45 For the analysis of Morrison’s lyrical texts, the identity references do not explicitly allude to the Romani people, the differences among the various groups or populations that make referential connections produced by these verses in their readers up the taxonomy of gypsyism cannot be ignored.
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