William Shakespeare and Sarah Kane are playwrights who for drastically different reasons have left indelible impacts upon the theatrical world. A key factor in each of their plays is the presentation of violence. Shakespeare uses violence for observable, orthodox reasons of driving the plot forward, while Kane uses it for sensory effect, social commentary, and for subverting traditional narrative expectations. This study examines how violence and fighting work as dramaturgical tools in these playwrights’ work, by individual examination, juxtaposition, and the use of other pieces of drama to inform these two differing schools of theatrical violence.

I argue that literary texts after 1980 use the fluid relationship between the physical world and the world of writing in order to present alternate versions of the body’s relationship to the mind. Examining works by Toni Morrison, William Gibson, Kathy Acker, Sarah Kane, and Shelley Jackson, I demonstrate the ways in which these texts reinterpret the relationship between mind and body by offering bodily metaphors for their character’s interior emotional lives; they compare this inner life to a pregnant mother, a sexual couple, and more. I emphasize the political implications of the kinds of bodies employed in these metaphors, setting this against the background of late twentieth century feminism. I read my primary texts alongside the work of Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigary, and others, in order to chart the parallel projects of literature and theory in articulating the relationship between the body—especially, the female body—and our understandings of subjectivity and representation. Starting with the 1980s, when the second wave feminist movement suffered conservative backlash, and continuing through the development of the third wave, I examine literary theorizations of feminist concerns during a period of transition in the feminist movement itself.

Submitted by Automa??o e Estat?stica (sst@bczm.ufrn.br) on 2017-04-17T21:15:22Z No. of bitstreams: 1 RummeniggeMedeirosDeAraujo_TESE.pdf: 5497601 bytes, checksum: 39721853850dd72b415b468e09280d21 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Arlan Eloi Leite Silva (eloihistoriador@yahoo.com.br) on 2017-04-18T20:01:05Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 RummeniggeMedeirosDeAraujo_TESE.pdf: 5497601 bytes, checksum: 39721853850dd72b415b468e09280d21 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-18T20:01:05Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RummeniggeMedeirosDeAraujo_TESE.pdf: 5497601 bytes, checksum: 39721853850dd72b415b468e09280d21 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-26 / Esta pesquisa ? o resultado de uma reflex?o te?rico-anal?tica sobre a obra dramat?rgica da escritora inglesa Sarah Kane. Na maneira como ela estrutura e articula um incessante di?logo, em sua escritura, com os mortos (a tradi??o dramat?rgica), sobre os mortos (as diferentes ideias e no??es de morte na vida urbana) e para os que v?o morrer, nesse caso, a sua pr?pria pessoa em forma de registro autobiogr?fico. O trabalho se det?m, especificamente, na an?lise dos seus tr?s ?ltimos trabalhos: Cleansed (Purificados, 1998), Crave (?nsia, 1998) e 4.48 Psychosis (Psicose 4:48, 2000). Levando em considera??o o desenvolvimento dos elementos e no??es que constroem o conceito de Tanatopo?tica. Dessa maneira, s?o de interesse particular para esse trabalho as no??es de escritura e escrita perform?tica para an?lise e contextualiza??o da obra da dramaturga na hist?ria teatral, uma vez que essas no??es permitem compreender e abordar a obra a partir do vi?s performativo. Este trabalho identifica, constr?i e investe ainda, na no??o de personagem golem como um dispositivo de duplo ou sombra para discutir e inscrever quest?es do universo ?ntimo de sua autora. Para a discuss?o dessas no??es foram fundamentais as ideias de Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Alex Beigui, Diana Klinger e Gershom Scholem. O estudo sobre a morte e a fenomenologia tanatol?gica foi conduzido a partir da an?lise das escrituras, na sua abordagem direta ao tema, ou por meio das refer?ncias, cita??es e met?foras utilizadas pela autora para elaborar a sua po?tica da morte, ou tanatopo?tica. Para isso levaram-se em considera??o as ideias de Edgar Morin, Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Heidegger, Arthur Schopenhauer, Heiner M?ller, Vladimir Safatle, entre outros. Kane aparece neste trabalho como autora que se mostra tribut?ria ? linhagem hist?rica do Teatro do Absurdo, sem reconhecer ou assumir oficialmente sua filia??o, mas transcendendo a ela na supera??o daquele que foi o seu maior intento; a recusa ao nome, a aniquila??o e a fuga da linguagem teatral. / This research is the outcome of a theoretical-analytical consideration about the dramaturgical works of the british playwright Sarah Kane. About the way she structures and articulate an unceasing dialogue in her writings with the dead (the dramaturgical tradition); about the dead (the different ideas and notions about death in the urban life); and with the ones that are going to die, i.e. herself in autobiographical registers. The work focuses, specifically, at the analysis of her three last plays: Cleansed (1998), Crave (1998), and 4.48 Psychosis (2000), taking into consideration the development of the notions and elements that build the Thanatopoetic concept. The particular interests of this work are the notions of writing and performative writing applied to the analysis and contextualization of Kane?s work at the theatre history, since those notions allow the comprehension and approach of the plays through a performative bias. This work also identifies, develops and invests the notion of the ?Golem? character as a dual or shadow device, to discuss and enroll matters from the playwright?s intimate universe. For the discussion of these notions, the author uses ideas from Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Alex Beigui, Diana Klinger and Gershom Scholem. The study about death and the thanatological phenomenology will be conducted with the analysis of the writings, in its direct theme approach, or through references, quotations and metaphors used by the playwright to elaborate her ?Death poetic?, or Thanatopoetic. For that, the author takes into consideration the works of Edgar Morin, Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Heidegger, Arthur Schopenhauer, Heiner M?ller, Vladimir Safatle, among others. This work also identifies in Kane an author that pays tribute to the historical lineage of the Absurd theatre, without officially recognizing or assuming such affiliation, but instead transcending it with the overcoming of what was her biggest intent; the annihilation of and escape from the theatrical language.

Sarah Kane has often been categorized as an “In-Yer-Face” playwright, part of a group of contemporary British playwrights interested in making audiences feel the outcome of violence. However, Kane’s plays have also arguably challenged many existing theatrical forms, including the late twentieth century resurgence of “Angry Young Men” plays. While critics have been quick to identify madness as a main theme of her work, few have connected each play’s complex construction of madness with a struggle to complicate existing theatrical form. Through an intersectionally feminist reading of three of her plays—Blasted, Crave, and 4.48 Psychosis—this thesis examines the connection between the rejection of normative disability tropes (or madness, more specifically) and the challenging construction of theatrical form that takes place within each of these Kane plays.

Cette étude s’intéresse à l’espace mental comme nouveau terrain d’exploration du drame britannique contemporain, et examine les manifestations d’un mouvement qui « met en pièces » les régions inexplorées des pensées inconscientes et les contrées impénétrables du traumatisme. Puisant dans les découvertes de la psychanalyse et des sciences cognitives, inspiré par le changement de paradigme de la mécanique quantique et ses interrogations sur le rôle et la nature de la conscience, ce théâtre non plus tant « in-yer-face » que « in-yer-head » s’éloigne de la sensibilité des années 1990. Les pièces de Crimp, Kane, Churchill, Cooper, Frayn, Stephens, Payne, Haddon, Ravenhill, Neilson et d’autres déconstruisent et reconstruisent le personnage comme la somme virtuelle de tous ses possibles. Le mode d’existence spéculatif, diffracté et pluriel du sujet renouvelle les définitions du réalisme psychologique et du réalisme théâtral. Ce travail étudie les modalités de cette « psychopoétique quantique » autour de concepts clés comme la probabilité ou l’incertitude, et montre comment des métaphores issues de la théorie quantique comme la dualité onde-particule ou les mondes multiples servent à illustrer l’indétermination de la psyché en évoquant les mécanismes de défense et autres symptômes qui constituent la réalité subjective d’esprits affectés par le traumatisme, la psychose, le stress ou la maladie neurologique. Nous montrons qu’en explorant la nature de la conscience, du soi et de la réalité ainsi que la condition des femmes, ces pièces posent des questions philosophiques sur le libre arbitre et la possibilité de choix dans un monde devenu plus incertain et imprévisible que jamais. / This study asserts that the human mind has become the new frontier in contemporary British drama, and interrogates and assesses manifestations of this movement which stages uncharted regions of thought and the dark territories of traumatic mindscapes. Drawing on theories from psychoanalysis and cognitive science, and inspired by the paradigm shifts of quantum mechanics and its interrogations on the role and nature of consciousness, this new theatre moves from “in-yer-face” to “in-yer-head” and away from the sensibility of the “nasty nineties.” Plays by Crimp, Kane, Churchill, Cooper, Frayn, Stephens, Payne, Haddon and others deconstruct and reconstruct the character as thevirtual sum of all her possibilities. In these mental spaces, the subject’s speculative, diffracted and plural mode of existence redefines psychological realism and stage realism. Examining the modalities of a quantum “psychopoetics” around key concepts such as probability and uncertainty, I show how metaphors borrowed from quantum theory based on the double slit-experiment, the wave-particle duality, the wavefunction collapse, the observer effect, quantum decoherence, quantum entanglement, and the many-worlds interpretation are used to emphasise the intrinsic indeterminacy of our minds. They evoke a number of psychological defense mechanisms and other symptoms that constitute the subjective reality of disturbed minds affected by trauma, psychosis, stress or neurological disease. By exploring the nature of mind, the self, and reality, and the condition of women, these plays address philosophical questions about free will and choice in a world that has become more uncertain and unpredictable than ever.

Souvent conceptualisée comme l’envers ou l’opposé de la raison, la folie, presque toujours synonyme de débordement, semble vouée à outrepasser toute limite définitoire ou conceptuelle posée par la pensée rationnelle. Cette pulsion de délimitation ou de classification inhérente à la rationalité, trouve dans le genre l’une de ses expressions les plus représentatives. Partant du constat que la folie ne cesse de transgresser les frontières traditionnelles de genre, ce travail étudie les liens entre les représentations littéraires de la maladie mentale et les questions de genre sexué (« gender ») comme littéraire, dans un corpus composé de romans, nouvelles et pièces de théâtre de six auteurs (Janet Frame, Jenny Diski, Sarah Kane, Ian McEwan, Anthony Neilson et Will Self), publiés entre 1951 et 2004. Animées par une dynamique toujours renouvelée de subversion des catégories établies, ces oeuvres invitent à une réflexion sur le rapport particulier qu’entretient la folie à la frontière, qui de simple ligne de démarcation ou de séparation se fait point de contact, puis espace à part entière. À travers leurs représentations de la folie, les récits étudiés privilégient le plus souvent, en effet, une esthétique et une épistémologie de l’entre. Cette réflexion s’articule donc principalement autour des images et des usages de la liminalité dans ces histoires de fous et de folles qui, au fil de leur (re)définition de l’appartenance et de l’identité des textes et des individus, esquissent une cartographie mobile des « contrées à venir » dont Deleuze et Guattari font la destination de toute écriture. / Traditionally conceptualised as the underside or the outside of reason, madness most often rhymes with excess; as such, it continually threatens to transgress all definitional or conceptual limits set by rational thought. Indeed, at the core of rationality is an impulse to delimit and classify, of which categories of genre and gender are quintessential examples. Starting from the observation that depicting madness regularly entails crossing, questioning and redefining genre and gender boundaries, this work investigates how literary representations of madness relate to the classification and conceptualisation of gender and genre in a selection of novels, short stories and plays by six different writers – Janet Frame, Jenny Diski, Sarah Kane, Ian McEwan, Anthony Neilson, and Will Self – published between 1951 and 2004. With the subversion of established categories as their central aim and dynamics, these works call for an exploration of the specific way in which depictions of madness, by using the border as one of their core motifs, impact the conceptualisation of borders. No longer a mere demarcation or dividing line between spaces, or simply a meeting point, the border becomes a full-blown space for individuals and texts to inhabit. Indeed, through their representations of madness, the borderline stories under study seem to embrace and promote both an aesthetics and an epistemology of the in-between. This work therefore focuses on the images and uses of liminality in stories of madmen and madwomen that, by remapping textual and sexual identities, have begun to chart these “lands to come” which, according to Deleuze and Guattari, are the true destination of all writing.

莎拉肯恩《4.48精神異常》以破曉時分為題，描寫一名憂鬱成疾的女性於凌晨甦醒並決定以自殺終結生命的關鍵時刻。劇中呈現精神病患者承受心理治療之苦與面對社會正常化(social normalization)的暴力過程。肯恩早期的劇作強調具體暴力之呈現，有別於此，本劇大量使用影像，並以不連續的片段，文本化(textualize)社會的暴力壓迫。根據亞陶的殘酷劇場(Theatre of Cruelty)，片段式語言搭配影像的使用，能有效幫助個體表達難以言喻之想法與被壓抑之情感。本論文旨在借用亞氏語言觀探討肯恩《4.48精神異常》中詩意語言的使用。肯恩以片段式結構(fragmentary structure)取代角色與情節，傳達精神病患者不見容於社會的破碎思緒，並在病患的語言中採用拼貼式影像(collaged images)，企圖以視覺意象呈現其殘破不堪的心理狀態。本論文分成四章，分析《4.48精神異常》中的語言，將其視為肯恩對社會正常化所展現最終極抗議。首章說明肯恩生平、本劇簡介與評論及本論文理論架構。次章分析本劇的片段式結構，研究肯恩如何使用片段式的詩意文字描繪病人的孤立無援與自相矛盾等心理不適現象。第三章檢視本劇中視覺化(visual)與文字化(textual)的影像，其主要功能為幫助病人表述自我內心痛苦與對社會的控訴。論文末章總結指出亞氏觀點能幫助讀者解讀肯恩暴力劇場中的詩意語言。 / Titled with a crucial moment when a depressed woman awakes before dawn and decides to commit suicide, Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis presents the violent process of a psychotic patient suffering from psychiatric therapy and social normalization. Unlike Kane’s early plays that emphasize the presentation of physical violence, this play is characterized by an excessive use of images and is composed of discontinuous fragments that textualize the violent oppression from society. From Artaud’s theory of Theatre of Cruelty, the use of fragmentary language with images helps to convey one’s inexplicable thoughts and suppressed emotions. Artaud’s view on language sheds new light on the interpretation of Kane’s poetic language in 4.48 Psychosis. Without an explicit indication of characters and plot, Kane uses a fragmentary structure to narrate the patient’s broken thoughts, which are not allowed to be voiced in a normal society. Deprived of the ability of voicing, the psychotic patient strives to communicate with others by incorporating collaged images in her language to visualize the devastated state of her psychological mind. Consisting of four chapters, this thesis examines the language of 4.48 Psychosis and interprets this play as Kane’s ultimate form of protest against the violence of social normalization. Chapter One is an introduction to Kane’s life, the play, the critical opinions, and the theoretical framework. Chapter Two analyzes the fragmentary structure of this play and studies how Kane uses poetic fragments to illustrate the patient’s alienation, psychological discomfort, and self-contradiction. Chapter Three examines the visual and textual images of this play. Both kinds of images assist the patient in her narration of psychological pain and her accusation against society. Chapter Four is the conclusion of the thesis that sums up the Artaudian approach of interpreting Kane’s poetic language in her theatre of violence.

This thesis presents a close analysis of one of the ageless discourses of human life &ndash / apocalypse, or the End &ndash / within the highly controversial In-Yer-Face drama of the 1990s British stage. The study particularly argues that there is a strong apocalyptic sense in the plays of the decade, and it discovers that the apocalyptic representation within these plays varies. Five plays by three prominent playwrights of the decade are used to illustrate and expand the focus. After a detailed examination of the apocalyptic discourse, it is claimed that Mark Ravenhill&rsquo / s Shopping and F***ing and Faust is Dead are based on certain philosophical ideas of the End, Anthony Neilson&rsquo / s Normal and Penetrator reveal the apocalyptic through an extreme use of violence, and Sarah Kane&rsquo / s 4.48 Psychosis comingles representations of the apocalyptic and psychological trauma.

An examination and exploration of ‘the (syn)aesthetic style’, a particular sensate mode of performance and appreciation that has become prominent in recent years in contemporary arts practice. The (syn)aesthetic performance style fuses disciplines and techniques to create interdisciplinary and intersensual work with emphasis upon; the (syn)aesthetic hybrid; the prioritisation of the body in performance and the visceral-verbal ‘play-text’. ‘(Syn)aesthetics’ is adopted as an original discourse for the analysis of such work, appropriating certain quintessential features of the physiological condition of synaesthesia to clarify the impulse in performance and appreciation which affects a ‘disturbance’ within audience interpretation. Original terms employed attempt to elucidate the complex appreciation strategies integral to this performance experience. These include the double-edged semantic/somatic or making-sense/sense-making process of appreciation, which embraces the individual, immediate and innate, and the ‘corporeal memory’ of the perceiving body. Liveness and the live(d) moment are considered, alongside notions of ritual and transcendence and the primordial and technological. The argument surveys the inheritance that saw to this contemporary style emerging, in Britain in particular, considering female performance practice, intercultural and interdisciplinary ensemble performance and the ‘New Writing’ aesthetic. Critical and performance theorists referred to include Friedrich Nietzsche, the Russian Formalists, Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, Hélène Cixous, Luce Irigaray, Antonin Artaud, Valère Novarina, Howard Barker and Susan Broadhurst. Contemporary practitioners highlighted as case studies exemplary of (syn)aesthetic practice are Sara Giddens, Marisa Carnesky, Caryl Churchill and Sarah Kane. Furthermore, documentation of a series of original performance workshops explores the (syn)aesthetic impulse in performance and analysis from the perspectives of writer, performer and audience. (Syn)aesthetics as an interpretative device endeavours to enhance understanding of the intangible areas of performance which are increasingly difficult to articulate, thereby presenting a mode of analysis that extends performance theory for students and practitioners within the arts.

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