Journal of Arts, Vol. 26, Number (1), pp 1-19. King Sand Univ., Riyadh (2014 /1435H.) Transcending Genre: ‘Out-Of-History’ Characters in Sebastian Barry’s Dramaturgy and Narratives Maha Mohammad Sallam, Assistant Professor of English Literature, College of Arts, University of Dammam. (Received 24/4/1434H; Accepted for publication 16/12/1434H) Key Words: Sebastian Barry – Irish Drama and Novel – Narratology – History Abstract. The literary project of Sebastian Barry presents a remarkable degree of cohesion insofar as Barry is committed to conjuring up the lives of characters that were omitted out of the official history of the Irish Republic or at least relegated to positions of disgrace in that history. Giving voice to these characters is an act of redemption whose main goal is understanding and reconciliation rather than judgement or assigning blame. The paper studies two of Barry’s works with inevitable cross-references to other works by the same author. The first is Barry’s 2008 novel The Secret Scripture, his most recent novel up-to-date, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize of the same year. The second is Barry’s acknowledged masterpiece of drama – The Steward of Christendom – first performed at The Royal Court Theatre, London, on 30 March 1995. The study adopts a narratologicalapproach in addition to an application of theories of dramatic technique. It engages with the work of a number of literary and cultural critics and historians, whose main domain is Irish history and literature in general, and the work of Barry in particular. Preface: ‘Friend or enemy, no one has the Introduction monopoly on truth. Not even myself, and that is The literary project of the Irish poet, dramatist, also a vexing and worrying thought’ (Barry, and novelist Sebastian Barry (1955 - ) up-to-date 2008,127 – 8). presents a remarkable degree of cohesion insofar as ------------------------------- Barry‘s drama and novels in particular are ‘I am beginning to wonder strongly what is the committed to conjuring up the lives of characters nature of history. Is it only memory in decent that were omitted out of the official history of the sentences, and if so, how reliable is it? I would Irish Republic, or at least relegated to positions of suggest, not very. And that therefore most truth and disgrace in that history. Giving voice to these fact offered by these syntactical means is characters and writing their version of the story is treacherous and unreliable. And yet, I recognize an act of redemption and absolution whose main that we live our lives, and even keep our sanity, by goal is understanding and reconciliation rather than the lights of this treachery and this unreliability, judgement or assigning blame. Barry has a personal just as we build our love of country on these paper stake in the matter – a number of his family worlds of misapprehension and untruth. Perhaps, ancestors having played roles that were at one time this is our nature, and perhaps unaccountably it is blameless but later became culpable due to the part of our glory as a creature, that we can build our changing definitions of allegiance and loyalty in the best and most permanent buildings on foundations upheavals of Irish history. The present paper aims of utter dust. (Barry, 2008, 293) to show that Barry's engagement with history is at a -------------------------------- very far remove from any attempt to monopolize 1 2 Maha Sallam: Transcending Genre: ‘Out-Of-History’ Characters in Sebastian Barry’s Dramaturgy and Narratives the truth or replace one narrative by another. As truth transcending any syntactic truth offered by the illustrated in the quotations cited in the preface discourse of history. section, Barry is obsessed with the ironical situation Methodology faced by humanity vis-à-vis the treachery and The theoretical frame of reference of the present unreliability of the "syntactic truth" offered by study includes selected theories of narratology and historiography on the one hand, and the necessity, theories of dramatic performance. The study for human life, sanity and civilization, of adopting basically adopts Mieke Bal’s narratological model that "truth" on the other. According to Barry, the for analysis of narrative texts, with its three-layered ironical coexistence of contradictions in the human division of narrative into text, story, and fabula. mind seems to be part of our "nature" or even our Whenever relevant, the study also engages with "glory as a creature". Thus, the same act may narratological concepts coined by Roland Barthes, encode loyalty and betrayal or love and hate Gerard Genette, A.J.Greimas, William Hendricks simultaneously; and rather than offering his and Claude Bremond. According to Bal, “a narratives of the silenced/marginalized/demonized narrative text is a text in which an agent relates as an alternative to official historiography, the (‘tells’) a story in a particular medium, such as present study argues that Barry opts for what we language, imagery, sound, building, or a may call "lyrical truth" as well as "bodily truth" that combination thereof” (1997, 5). This definition coexist with and fill up the gaps left by syntactic arguably includes the narratives presented by novel truth. and drama, as well as those presented through other The present paper provides a study of two media including cinematic works, photographs, works out of the rich oeuvre of Sebastian Barry, music compositions, and painting, among others. with inevitable cross-references to other works by Bal divides narrative texts into three layers: the text the same author, given the cohesive nature of his layer, the story layer, and the fabula layer. “Only literary project as mentioned above. The two the text layer,” argues Bal, “embodied in the sign selected works belong to the literary genres of system of language, visual images, or any other novel and drama: The first work to be studied is [medium], is directly accessible” (1997, 6). This Barry’s 2008 novel The Secret Scripture, which means the text layer is the most superficial layer; was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize of the the fabula, on the other hand, is the deepest of the same year, and which is Barry’s most recent novel three layers, and is defined by Bal as, “a series of up-to-date. The second work is Barry’s logically and chronologically related events that are acknowledged masterpiece of drama – The Steward caused or experienced by actors” (1997, 5). The of Christendom, co-produced by The Royal Court “story” is the fabula “presented in a certain Theatre and Out of Joint, and first presented at The manner” (1997, 5); thus one fabula can give rise to Royal Court Theatre, London, on the 30th of March any number of stories depending on how the 1995. The two works fulfill the generic elements are arranged. Each arrangement results in, requirements presupposed by the different genres “a specific story which is distinct from other they are affiliated to. However, the present study stories” (Bal, 1997, 8). The same methodology of argues that Barry transcends the frontiers of generic “ripping apart a tight web of connections” for the territory – while simultaneously invoking the purpose of study is explained by Gerard Genette in various dramaturgical and narratological tools his analysis of “narrating situations” in Narrative prerequisite for literary composition – to give Discourse: An Essay in Method; Genette claims expression to his stated commitment to inclusion, that, “A narrating situation is, like any other, a forgiveness, balance and reconciliation. The study complex whole within which analysis, or simply illustrates that Barry uses novelistic and description, cannot differentiate except by ripping dramaturgic tools such as his choice of central apart a tight web of connections among the figures who live in "an extended aftermath of narrating act, its protagonists, its spatio-temporal heartbreak", his preference for dramatic monologue determinations, its relationship to the other or soliloquy as the main discursive tool in both narrating situations involved in the same narrative” novel and play, an elegiac lyrical style, recurrent (Genette, 1999, 174). The work of both Bal and father images, flashback, and visions that produce a Genette is built upon Roland Barthes’s seminal kind of lyrical, almost religious or metaphysical, Journal of Arts, Vol. 26, Number (1), King Sand Univ., Riyadh (2014 /1435H.) 3 work, “Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Equally relevant to this study are the concepts Narratives”, in which he argues that, of ritual and “secular sacrum" are endorsed by the The narratives of the world are numberless. … twentieth-century Polish director and theatre Faced with the infinity of narratives, the theorist Jerzy Grotowski as he identifies a link multiplicity of standpoints – historical, between the crisis of the theatre and that of psychological, sociological, ethnological, aesthetic, contemporary culture, namely, the decline of etc. from which they can be studied, … [one] religion, which inevitably leads to “the recognize[s] the following dilemma: either a disappearance of the sacred and its ritual function in narrative is merely a rambling collection of events, the theatre” (Grotowski, 1976, 195). Grotowski … or else it shares with other narratives a common goes on to explain his usage of the term “sacred”: structure which is open to analysis. (Barthes, 1977, “What we are talking about here is the possibility of 79 - 80) creating secular sacrum in the theatre” (1976, 195). It