الفهرس 
Subjectivity and OratureOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
 |  | from | 266 |  |  |
| | | from | 266 | | |
Abstract
This thesis explores Žižek’s psycho-cultural theories about the British symbolic reality within the context of performance poetry. According to Žižek, symbolic reality denotes a fictitious perception of the world, a perception that conforms to the ideological fantasies formulated by a hegemonic power. In formulating these fantasies, language becomes the most instrumental tool of symbolic subjectivization by the big Other, i.e. the personification of the dominant symbolic order. Language subjugates the others of the symbolic order; anyone who is different is expected to assimilate the dominant culture’s language, ideology and identity. The thesis thus postulates that the performance poetry event allows the subjects of the British symbolic to come into direct contact with the Caribbean other, i.e. the poet. Within this encounter, the alienated other and his/her culture, language and traditions come into close proximity with the hitherto shielded subjects. When confronted with the other’s gaze and voice, as well as the language, thoughts and beliefs imbuing the other’s poems, the spectating subjects’ subjectivity is threatened by the real that has been excluded from their symbolic reality. By attending the performance poetry event, the audience members risk traversing the symbolic fantasies about the other and thereby brace themselves for symbolic death, achieved through the ethical act of submitting themselves to the voice and the gaze of the other.
The thesis thus explores the means through which the performance poetry of John Agard’s Alternative Anthem (2009) and Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze’s Third World Girl (2011), textualized and performed, enables the subjects to traverse the fantasies about the Caribbean other and commit the ethical act, liberating themselves through their final symbolic act, their symbolic death. The thesis is composed of a preface, five chapters and a conclusion. The preface briefly introduces the topic and Žižek’s theory of subjectivity. Chapter One, entitled “Subjectivity and Orature,” presents the theoretical framework of the thesis. It begins by defining the
S u m m a r y - M a h m o u d | 229
Lacanian subject and his three orders, namely the real, the imaginary and the symbolic. It then proceeds to detail the theory’s cultural implications, expounded by Slavoj Žižek. The first chapter thus defines the key concepts in Žižek’s theory, namely, the subject, the objet petit a, the symptom, and the act. The chapter then presents performance poetry as a fertile ground for possible subjective destitution, due to the choice of genre itself as well as the propinquity it makes possible between the subjects and the other. The chapter also gives a brief history of the development of performance poetry, and its roots in oral cultures. Then, it expounds the longstanding conflict between literacy and orality, and pinpoints the gaps in the Western symbolic’s exaltation of the civilized written word, set against the alleged rudimentary culture of the spoken word.
Chapter Two, entitled “Textualized Orature Giving Voice to the Real,” examines the performed poems as textualized orature. It posits that the British symbolic speaks for all its others in order to screen the British subjects from the other’s real. Therefore, poetry makes resistance possible by giving the other his/her voice back, allowing him/her to speak without a prejudiced mediator. The analysis of the thematic and technical aspects of the poems falls into three manifestations of the British symbolic, the colonial symbolic order before and after the Caribbean islands’ independence, the racially discriminatory symbolic on the motherland, i.e. England, and the patriarchal symbolic in England and on the islands. In subverting the colonial big Other, the poems address the atrocities of slavery as well as the persistent economic and political exploitation of the islands after their independence in the sixties. As for the racially discriminatory big Other, Agard and Breeze’s approaches diverge. Breeze reverts to the Jamaican home as a symptom threatening symbolic social existence, while Agard discounts any national sentiments towards either his Guyanese home, or England. He also exposes the ontological violence inherent in language, directed at
S u m m a r y - M a h m o u d | 230
othered peoples, animals and even demonic creatures, while satirizing the big Other’s dependence on guilt and blame to maintain its symbolic authority. The two poets are also at variance in their treatment of the patriarchal big Other. While Agard disparages the othering and scapegoating of women, validating the Žižekian redefinition of ‘woman as a symptom of man,’ Breeze depicts the female as a hysterical subject, who questions the big Other and the basic foundations of its symbolic universe. Breeze’s females challenge the big Other’s re-presentation of the submissive, sexualized Caribbean woman, and present themselves anew in Breeze’s poetry, as symptomatic of culture, resistance and tradition.
Chapter Three, entitled “The Voice as a Real Object,” analyses the oral features of the performed orature. The chapter begins with a definition of the voice and its imminent danger to any established symbolic order. The voice poses a threat in the performed poems through three aspects of nonverbal communication, namely, the dialect, the speech prosody and the use of music. The analysis of the poets’ use of dialect emphasizes the three linguistic varieties of Caribbean creole and the different effect each variety can have on the subjects. First and foremost, the use of dialect, as a “nation-language,” implies resistance to expected linguistic assimilation. It is also capable of intensifying the feelings of discomfort experienced by the subjects in the performance event, in its possible incomprehensibility. Understanding the other thus entails knowing his/her language, regardless of its coherence. Furthermore, the chapter analyses the most dangerous aspect of the voice in the performance event. The poets’ Caribbean rhythm of speech, unlike the use of dialect and music, is an unintentional remnant of the poets’ language in his/her most English-like pronunciation of Standard English. Finally, the chapter showcases the different ways the poets employ music in their performance, whether through singing, using
S u m m a r y - M a h m o u d | 231
musical prologues, or using instruments, and the different impacts the three methods have on the audience.
Chapter Four, entitled “The Gaze as a Real Object,” continues the analysis of the performed poems, giving emphasis to its visual features. The gaze, according to Žižek, is the most immediate threat to the symbolic, because the subjects encounter the gaze of the other, who returns their gaze and disturbs their knowledge of the other, themselves and their big Other. It prompts a dismissal of their original imaginary identification, and a re-identification with the other as a symptom of social disharmony. The chapter tackles the intentional and unintentional functions of nonverbal visual communication in the performance, in the poets’ use of body language, facial displays and artefactual communication. The effects of the gaze of the performing other, whether intentional or unintentional, unsettle the subjects’ symbolic perception of themselves as well as pinpoint the gaps in their reality.
Chapter Five, entitled “The Audience and Poet as Subject and Object,” delineates the development of the relationship between the poet and the audience through the individual reading of poetry and, more specifically, through the performance event. It elucidates the conditions necessary to the development of a transferential/perlocutionary relationship between them. It begins with the elimination of physical distance, as the other adopts the role of both the subject supposed to know and the ignorant schoolmaster. Accordingly, the other seems to possess absolute knowledge of the subjects’ guilt, which strengthens the power of his/her gaze and voice. Meanwhile, this relationship also allows the audience to be active participants in the performance, as they have the freedom to interpret, associate and respond to the assumed knowledge of the subject supposed to know. The chapter then details the perlocutionary effects of the performance as the poets take advantage
S u m m a r y - M a h m o u d | 232
of the subjects’ belief in the symbolic to expose the audience’s subjectivity and the symbolic’s inconsistencies.
The Conclusion reintroduces the objectives and research questions of the thesis. It summarizes the five chapters and pinpoints the thesis’s answers to the objective of each chapter. It also gives comparative insights into the difference between Agard and Breeze as poets and as performers. The conclusion ends with some recommendations for further study; it suggests an analysis of the immediate effect of the poets’ gaze and voice on the oral and visual feedback of the spectators themselves