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Description
Author
Contents
Reviews
The Politics and Poetics of Contemporary English Tragedy is a detailed study of the idea of the tragic in the political plays of David Hare, Howard Barker, Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill, Mark Ravenhill, Sarah Kane, and Jez Butterworth. Through an in-depth analysis of over sixty of their works, Sean Carney argues that their dramatic exploration of tragic experience is an integral part of their ongoing politics. This approach allows for a comprehensive rather than selective study of both the politics and poetics of their work.
Carney’s attention to the tragic enables him to find a common discourse among the canonical English playwrights of an older generation and representatives of the nineties generation, challenging the idea that there is a sharp generational break between these groups. Finally, Carney demonstrates that tragic experience is often denied by the social discourse of Englishness, and that these playwrights make a crucial critical intervention by dramatizing the tragic.
Sean Carney is an associate professor in the Department of English at McGill University.
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Chapter One
David Hare: The Work of Mourning, or, The Agony and the Ecstasy of the Bourgeoisie
The Year of Magical Thinking – Teeth ‘n’ Smiles – Plenty –– The Secret Rapture – Skylight – The Judas Kiss – Amy’s View – My Zinc Bed – The Permanent Way –– The Vertical Hour – Gethsemane
Chapter Two
Howard Barker: Will and Desire – From the Tragedy of Socialism to the Ecstasy of the Unconscious
Claw – Fair Slaughter – That Good Between Us –– The Power of the Dog – Victory – The Castle – The Europeans –– The Possibilities – Gertrude-The Cry – Dead Hands – The Seduction of Almighty God by the Boy Priest Loftus in the Abbey of Calcetto, 1539
Chapter Three
Edward Bond: Tragedy and Postmodernity, or, The Promethean Impulse
Saved – Lear – Bingo – The Fool –– Restoration –– The War Plays – Olly’s Prison – At the Inland Sea – Coffee– The Crime of the Twenty-First Century – Chair
Chapter Four
Caryl Churchill: The Dionysian Möbius Strip
Seven Jewish Children – Lovesick – Abortive –– Owners – Traps –– Light Shining in Buckinghamshire – Cloud Nine – Top Girls – Fen – A Mouthful of Birds –– Lives of the Great Poisoners – The Skriker – Thyestes ––– Far Away –– A Number
Chapter Five
New English Tragedians: The Tragedy of the Tragic
Mark Ravenhill: Shopping and Fucking – Faust is Dead – Handbag – Some Explicit Polaroids – Product – The Cut – pool (no water) – Sarah Kane: Blasted – Phaedra’s Love – Cleansed – Crave – 4.48 Psychosis
Conclusion: Late Modernism in Jerusalem
Works Cited
Index
‘It is a real pleasure to read a study that negotiates its material as seriously, subtly, and purposefully as does The Politics and Poetics of Contemporary English Tragedy. This book offers a serious advance in research, and I look forward to my students and colleagues having the chance to read it.’
David Ian Rabey, Department of Theatre, Film, and Television Studies, Aberystwyth University
‘The Politics and Poetics of Contemporary English Tragedy is valuable contribution to the study of modern British drama. It is full of acutely interesting insights, articulated precisely and beautifully, and its focus on tragedy is rarely encountered in other works. This study is important and necessary not just because the book’s theoretical angle is new but also because it offers a unique combination of playwrights, from David Hare to Sarah Kane.’
David Ian Rabey, Department of Theatre, Film, and Television Studies, Aberystwyth University
‘The Politics and Poetics of Contemporary English Tragedy is valuable contribution to the study of modern British drama. It is full of acutely interesting insights, articulated precisely and beautifully, and its focus on tragedy is rarely encountered in other works. This study is important and necessary not just because the book’s theoretical angle is new but also because it offers a unique combination of playwrights, from David Hare to Sarah Kane.’
Luc Gilleman, Department of English Language and Literatures Smith College
