Europe's Times and Unknown Waters
e-revistă culturală
lansată în Aprilie 2009
ISSN 2066 - 3323

Critică literară - Conţinut

  1. Masks of otherness in The Road Home

  2. Censorship versus sheer ignorance. Altering the course of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great in the contemporary staging of the play

  3. Recenzie paul cornea,Delimitǎri şi ipoteze: comunicǎri şi eseuri de teorie literarǎ şi studii culturale



Masks of otherness in The Road Home


                

by Ioana Iacob


                 
                « Et alors tu t’en vas. Et t’en allant, tu t’oublies. Et en marchant, tu es un autre-et en étant, tu n’es plus. »

Emil Cioran


                Rose Tremain’s novel The Road Home (2007), awarded with the Orange Broadband Prize, is the artifact mirror of Europe’s culturally challenged thresholds and a literary projection of the biases that stem from cross-cultural interaction. To speak of a contemporary writer such as Rose Tremain without referring to the ideological framework that encompasses her novels (Restoration, Music and silence, The Colour, The Way I Found Her) is tantamount to a miscarriage of meaning. The Road Home is a story built up of medley tunes of foreignness, ethnocentrism and authenticity in as much as it is a great expectations account of the contemporary fiction vortex of imagination: it never leads up to the proper expectations because there is always more to tell than what is actually shown. Accordingly, the prerequisite to understanding the subliminal and paratextual cues of Tremain’s latest novel is to drill into the contextual foundation of the literary piece and, hence, to discover the premises that build the profile of the immigrant other in the British mainstream gallery. That is, it is salient to reconstruct the “road” of identity backwards, in such a way as to visualize the filters of “otherness”, the cultural strings attached to literature, and, ultimately, the character construction of the authentic immigrant.

                 To begin with, the itinerary of The Road Home stems from the author’s idea of translating the theme of immigration and otherness into literary devices: “when we think about people in a collective way – as, for instance, ‘immigrants, ‘foreigners’, ‘outsiders’ etc. – we tend to lack empathy with them and, almost invariably, to see their contribution to our society in a negative light. But the moment we become engaged with an individual story, empathy arrives and our attitudes alter.”[1] Such an altering of the otherness display equates the game the author plays with the readers’ perception of their mutually excluded compatriots- there is no hypostasis of the other until his/her narrative account switches from a biased metanarrative to a his-story that is all-encompassing. Tremain’s novel is, in this respect, a postmodern interpretation of the superficiality that contemporary overly globalised societies use when imposing the unconscious double exclusion because, whether the game is a “hide-and-seek” from the grand narrative façade of representation or, on the contrary, it is an auctorial “Simon says” literary strategy, the result is the same- fiction departs from the repression of reality and steps into a new terrain.

                 Probing the benefits of a literature of exclusion in postmodern interpretation shows that fringes are always disputable entities, even in a context that claims its hegemony in pluralism and acceptance. In fact, neither in literature nor in any consumption society is the status of the “other” prone to change, simply because alterity is a form of consciousness that no governing power can suppress, let alone mold into a pattern of normality. Moreover, in literature, the curiosity over the God complex poses the author in a gregarious position, where the puppeteer can sympathize with both the host characters and the obviously excluded others. Indeed, the net of narrative perspectives in which the postmodern writer engages emphasizes this premise entirely: the ontological is mandatory to seize what a world is, just as it can be a literary vehicle that shows what kind of worlds exist. Consequently, the starting point in this debate of perception in The Road Home is bound to be the representation of “otherness” and the implicit levels of narrative action.

                 Equally important, there is another aspect that is worth mentioning in The Road Home, connected with the author’s choice of postmodern delineation. Rose Tremain has been a prolific creator of historiographic metafictions and an accurate displayer of “faction” in her other novels, which inevitably led to her adopting of the history label. This, however, no longer applies in The Road Home where the contextual depiction sticks to nowadays London and is set to make only small steps in the immediate past and space, without, however, departing from the axis of present. The question that imposes therefore, is: how such a departure from the historiographic literature gives this new auctorial strategy enough space to breathe and develop? And, even more importantly, how does the imagery of contemporary faction apply to the fragmented fairytale of identity, without questioning its stringent locus?

                 The story of otherness in Tremain’s novel begins with an introspection into the prolegomenon of the concept, with reference to Levinas, Ricoeur and Lacan’s theories on the subject. The idea is to move the focus on the other throughout each of the three instances and identify preliminaries for the characters’ identification with the theoretical framework. Primarily, Paul Ricouer’s cognitive interpretation of otherness as a bifocal lens claims that “the terms of confrontation are: identity as sameness and identity as selfhood”[2] or “idem identity and ipse identity”. Since otherness can only function at the interference level between object and subject, the construction takes place by jointing the two types of identities: ipse and idem. That is, otherness becomes an acknowledged entity when the embodiment of the ipse (self-relatedness) takes places and, necessarily, when it mingles with the idem. In other words, the ontological discourse that Ricouer furnishes states that selfhood can only find its definition through the presence of an other, which, accordingly, means that, in order for the mainstream to stand, there is a stringent need for the presence of otherness. Obviously, this is a biased perspective, since it claims at constructing the other only as a piece of the larger mechanism of sameness and, by doing so, the identity of the other is hardly approached.

                 However demeaning the representation of otherness may be (from Ricouer’s point of view) the premise is valid in The Road Home, because it plunges the embodiment of otherness – the immigrant- directly in the horizon of the British “sea” of society. That is, the immigrant in the novel will and has to be defined only in relation with the contrasting British society and its landmark individuals. Lev, Lydia, Christy, Ahmed or Jasmine are all immigrant outcasts in Britain, despite their social status and their adaptation span with the English culture, simply by being others in a globalised society. They cannot be defined individually and on grounds of their private identities due to the fact that their experiences and cultures have no echo on the British realm, nor do they resonate in any cultural identification terrain. Instead, Britain engulfs in a journey of gradual recognition along with their agglutination into the structural processes of the country, therefore, by referring to the others as necessary foreign pieces of a powerful and solid machinery.

                 Accordingly, Christy turns from the happy Irish father into a British plumber, Lev gives up his lumberjack work in Auror to become a chef’s assistant in a British restaurant, and Lydia renounces an English teacher job in exchange for being a British secretary. Perhaps none of these shifts can be accounted for as career devolutions, since all of the three characters desired Britain to be their new terrain of happiness. However, the miserable feeling of unaccomplishment and failure haunts them down throughout their apparent career building precisely because their otherness cannot be erased by a mere work integration. While trying to attain the idem identity these others cannot self-relate (ipse identity) entirely: their identities are in a process of reconstruction but the characters are unwilling to give up their own cultural values and enter a virgin land of new and contrasting rules. That is why Lev is never self-satisfied with his choices and his accomplishments: even though he gains a new identity dimension, his being an other prevents him from relating with those whose self has not been fragmented (Sophie, and eventually, Ina and Rubi).

                 Secondly, referring to Jacques Lacan’s interpretation of “otherness” special focus must be cast upon the boundaries that occur between the self/I and the other because “the concept of self relies on one’s misidentification with the image of an other( Grand autre/Other and petit objet a/other)”[3]. For Lacan the self and the other are two very distinct entities for which a differential diagnosis imposes: if, indeed, the other is, as Lacan claims it to be, a separated concept that is not enclosed in the self, what is the other’s relation to the self then? Resorting to the mirror stage[4] the projection of otherness appears to be forged at the level of representing the ideal self- what the individuals perceive and believe to be the “ideal”. That is, even though otherness and selfhood are unmixable compounds the boundaries between them do coalesce when otherness seems to be the alternative of the ideal, respectively, when the self, in its quest for perfection, discovers its own personal territory of otherness.

                 In The Road Home the Lacanian perspective on the other applies at the level of characters interaction and relationships because the couple creates an unprecedented freedom of expression. Lev and Sophie work together as a couple because they are binary opposites: one is the product of the consumerist British society, lost in the celebrity frenzy and consumption abuse, while the other is a naïve construct of an underdeveloped society, where the hierarchy of cultural values is far away from its Western counterpart. Lev bounds with Sophie due to their acknowledged difference, because he sees in her the accomplishment of the modern social goals- power, fame, friends, fun and freedom, whereas his identity is tormented between homesickness and striving for a better status. Likewise, Sophie becomes a Lev-addict especially due to his nature of otherness, which adds the pinch of exoticism in her saturated frenzy lifestyle and which seems to instill peace in the rapid pace of society.

                 Nevertheless, this unification of self and the other is doomed to fail because, in The Road Home, the otherness that immigrants such as Lev and Lydia bring is hardly the equivalent to an ideal life. Instead, the main burden that the stigma of otherness seems to introduce in Lev and Sophie’s love story is the aspect of “passing and fitting”. Sophie tries to make Lev “pass” for a local when she takes him to see the “Peccadilloes” play, an extremely high-rated, postmodern and abstract play which, to Lev only, seems dull, unreal and grotesquely superficial. It is Lev’s choice, therefore, to refrain from “passing” as a promoter of empty values and to feed his own cultural interpretation in the detriment of a “promising” love affair. From the other direction, however, the impact of “passing” changes, as Sophie shows a temporary or a pseudo-passing as an other/ as Lev’s equal when spending the day with Christy’s daughter, in Silverstrand. Her openness towards freedom and refrain from the social conventions might mark her as an other and it is at this point that Lev embraces the thought of compatibility. Nonetheless, the otherness that Sophie exhibits is only a trademark viable to any individual trapped in the postmodern machine and must not be mistaken with the authentic label of otherness that Lev, as a cultural and national other carries.

                 Thirdly, the story of otherness can also be told by Emmanuel Levinas, who casts a new dimension over the arbitrary of the other, by attributing it the hegemony of power. According to Levinas the other is a primordial order that is mandatory for the definition of the self: therefore the other becomes a generator of “jouissement”, through the transmutation of the other into the same”[5] and the boundaries within which one can define itself. Postmodern literature translates this concept of otherness via two channels: on the one hand, there is the tendency to display otherness through the mechanism of interpretation- what and how the other sees the non-local world and, on the other hand, there is the cue of biased rejection that society hints at when building outcasts and rejecting others on the basis of stereotypes.

                 Lev sees a sick London, defined by “conspicuous consumption”, workaholism, perverted values and fake kindness, which is the opposite of his expectations related to this urban locus. The filtering of the British society through the lens of otherness shows, therefore, the real identity of the city and its characters, who fail to ascertain the presence of those who cannot conform to standards. The immigrants, in this respect, are the mirror that any society carries: marginalized and labeled as specific work typologies they cannot “pass” for distinct identities, but rather they are thrown together in the melting pot of ethnicity where voicelessness reigns. Interestingly enough, Lev also borrows a touch from the British snobbery of rejection of others: while back in Auror and Baryn, he is incapable of breaking entirely from the mixed identity that London awarded him. His desire is to “fit” and therefore be recognized as an Eastern European, but, in order for his “fitting” to be self-satisfying, the patterns must be modified for a larger inclusion. Accordingly, this otherness that Levinas conceives is a mark of double stigmata: that of being a proud voice of otherness and of tacitly and willingly melting into a flavour-oriented pot.

                 The profile of the other in The Road Home is an interesting account of the British experience with the wide array of immigrants that define its multiculturalism. The perception of these others is filtered by the reader’s interpretation of the literary games that the author plays: the emphasis on the immigrant’s experience, rather than a viewpoint of the society upon him, the transition from a temporal to a spatial logic and, respectively, the intertextual references. Therefore, Lev’s status as a working immigrant is regarded with a sympathetic eye, by becoming a humanized piece of the immigrants mass. Likewise, Christy, Jasmine and Lydia are all icons of otherness, but somehow, they manage to insert their identities within the mainstream Britishness, unlike Lev, who never thoroughly copes with the required standards. Moreover, the image of alterity comes from the confrontation with the opposite poles- the authentic Britons (G K Ashe, Sophie, Howie Preece), who share the snobbish attitude and display the “stiff upper-lip” landmark in their every gesture. It is likely that the sympathetic attitude that both author and reader share with regards to Lev comes from the continuous rejection and pressure that the British characters casts upon him: with them Lev is never comfortable because “how he behaves” becomes a highly controlled mechanism and, implicitly, it causes a deviation of his own nature.

                 Furthermore, why doesn’t Lev, as an immigrant face in the crowd, appear as an uncivilized barbarian in the middle of the “high-class” restaurant staff? And, even more importantly, why does Lev take Hamlet as his partner throughout his self-discovery journey? A plausible answer would be that being a voiced character in postmodern societies is tantamount to achieving success and accomplishing material value: “Life is a feckin’ football match to the Brits now. They didn’t used to be like this, but now they are. If you can’t get your ball in the back of the net, you’re no one.”[6] Lev, just like any other immigrant is a piece of the diaspora puzzle that defines Britain more and more, and, consequently, must be integrated in the social wheel. His success, however, is measured in different terms: the standards do not apply equally when it comes to accomplishment because immigrants can never attain the same status. Nevertheless, Lev’s small steps build him an apparent bubble-world that seems as alluring as his dreams are: by becoming engages in the restaurant’s kitchen staff, by experiencing a love affair with Sophie and by enjoying the bitter-sweet taste of money, he temporarily lives the illusion that the Western life can indeed be an achievable ideal.

                 Notwithstanding, the bubble soon breaks and shatters the magic, along with the dismay of all his successes. In fact, Lev realizes the shallowness that governs the long-dreamt Western world the very moment when his and Sophie’s relationship collapses. By choosing Howie Preece, Sophie proves the infantile greed over fame and the materialism that define society, but, even more importantly, she manages to prove Lev that the culture clash is an imminent factor in any interaction. It is at this point that the entire cycle is doomed to crash: the break-up leads to Lev getting fired and losing the only incoming funds that made possible a connection with his home and family.

                 In addition, The Road Home is also a story about how identities are created in local spaces, that is, how “home” marks the entire evolution of characters and instill cultural values in their figures. This is more visible in the representation of the Eastern Europeans in the novel, namely, Rudi, Ina and Maya, whose strong and unique personalities are testimonies of social strength and obstinacy against imposed changes. Ina, for instance, doesn’t even consider the alternative of moving to Baryn, because this would mean a renunciation to her home, traditions and locally-imbued culture. Likewise, Rudi remains incapable of action when his Western Chevy doesn’t function any more, simply because changing the car or improving the pieces with foreign ones would derobe it of personality. At the other pole, change is a benefic and expected feature in the profile of the British characters: Sophie changes her partner on the basis of spontaneous flings, G K Ashe finds no trouble in replacing his staff.

                 Lev, on the other hand, who highly values the “home” heritage but is under direct scrutiny of British changing times shows a distinct pigment. Indeed, experience continues to function as threshold for identity shaping in Lev’s case, because the Eastern Europe heritage is deeply rooted in his system: he is skeptic to change because the type of change he encountered (Marina’s death, the disappearance of work demand and the bureaucratic administration in Auror) was only made in his own detriment. However, the Western change is wrapped in shiny coats and comes with strings: getting a job at the restaurant means getting experience as chef, being paid, meeting and interacting with British natives and, ultimately, starting a romance. But, when putting the two types of changes in a balance the problem arises with respect to what Lev is willing to renounce: will it be his hegemonic creed in tradition and home-bound values or the alluring but slippery-slope of Western consumption world? Needless to say, Lev chooses a combination of the two and his main failure comes when he tries to combine the two cultures and induce the opposite change pattern in each of the two places-London and Auror.

                 There is more to the constituency of otherness than the mere belonging to a different ethnic group, namely, the feature of dreams and ideals that the others have. Lev’s dream upon arrival in Britain is to cater for his family’s needs and help them survive by sending money- his ideal is a typical patriarchal scope that complies with the Eastern European culture. Later, however, after seizing the taste of power that money give, Lev remodels his ideal and the dream becomes mainly a self-oriented aspiration: to gather funds and advice so as to start his own restaurant in his native country. Likewise, Lydia is not far from the pattern of dream modification: she starts from an eager desire to become a translator in England and moves to being the submissive and compromised secretary of Pyotor Greszler. The mutation of their dreams occurs in the background of exclusion, when the character encounter failure and when their dreams crash against the less-noble but pragmatic development stances of the British they meet.

                 Ideals, nonetheless, are also references for the intertextual cues about Hamlet, since both protagonists experience the same emptiness of what there is to aspire in a world devoid of meaning. By and large, Lev is the modern day foreign replica of Hamlet: his father wouldn’t move into the future and past ghosts haunt his conscience permanently, preventing him to cross over to the other side. Marina’s imaginary presence is a constant in the novel, accounting for the dismay of self-fulfillment; in fact, the dead wife is the home consciousness that aims at directing Lev towards the right path, but also the barrier that prevents him from healing.
                 “Even he, who still had trouble understanding English, could seize the economy with which the question was addressed. He was fighting the thought that, if language were always that simple, that sweet and unambiguous as this one, then life itself would be less complicated. To be or not to be. He said it over and over again. He tried translating it in his own language. He fell asleep saying it, remembering in his dream how, when Marina died, he wanted “not to be”.”[7]

                 Lacan’s structuralist theories about Hamlet can easily apply to Tremain’s novel, where the Oedipal complex (Lacan’s starting point leaves from Freud’s analysis) and the need to protect the feminine figures in Lev’s life manifests strongly. The mourning of Marina, just like Hamlet’s mourning, can easily explain the absence of a round-shaped psyche, because Lev misses both his dead and estranged mother and daughter, therefore, his assuming of the phallus role is no longer valid in a world deprived of matriarchal figures. Similarly, the theme of abandonment is recurrent throughout the novel as Lev is always on the run from the pressing responsibilities: he escapes from the painful Auror to run from haunting remorse, just as, in Britain, he tries to hide from the self-inflicted guardian responsibility, in eloping with Sophie.

                 At another level of interpretation, a feminist perspective imposes in the analysis of the novel by showing how masculinity is defined in a post-femininity world: “Poor men, I tell you, said Christy while he drank his tea. It’s women who are grabbing our balls in this century, that’s what I think.”[8] Lev revolves in a circle of women- Marina, Lydia, Sophie, Ina, Maya and Ruby- who define his ideals and his past, while interfering with every step in his journey. On the one hand, there is the haunting presence of Marina, Ina and Maya who constantly drag Lev on the side of responsibility, commitment and family, while on the other hand, Sophie is the “seize the day” impulse towards entertainment, freedom and sexuality. Consequently, it can be said that the author depicts Eastern European typology of women (Marina, Ina, Lora) as a symbol for healing and comforting, for family and tight peers and, ultimately, for motherhood and protection. Sophie’s type is at the opposite pole: she stands for the powerful active, yet avenging woman who rejects the canon roles of womanhood and aims for freedom through sexuality, entertainment and lack of responsibilities.( An obvious example is Sophie’s giving up of her visits to the home care centre when she breaks up with Lev and moves over to a new level of her life, with Howie Preece- she casts away all responsibility and attachment without remorse and guilt.)

                 However, the pattern of East-West and good-bad typologies of women in the novel has its own odd example: Lydia and Ruby Constad, who are the beginning and finish line of Lev’s dream. Lydia joins Lev’s journey from the beginning of the novel and is a guiding pillar throughout his experience in England, catering both for his emotional needs and material ones. In love with him, Lydia is always trying to establish a connection based on their common ethnic identity, but, at the same time, she is striving to push Lev forward in the vortex of modern life by helping him get a job and a place to live. Accordingly, Lydia is a hybrid of the East and the West and, to Lev, an oasis of self-recognition and ideological support. Ruby Constad, the old British lady at Ferndale s also a dual feminine prototype, as she both encourages Lev in his dream of setting a restaurant in Baryn and insists on his starting a freedom and worry-free new life. The secret to Ruby’s mixed identity is her belonging to the past and her fascination with tradition and family values that were once still valid. Eventually, the sum that she offers Lev is the end and accomplishment of his dream, but more importantly, it partially modifies the biased superficiality that Lev attributes to the British.

                 Lastly, the ultimate space in which the profile of otherness is constructed is the urban imaginary: London and the very different Auror. The peripatetic journey begins in a London full of fascinating attractions that engage Lev in an ascending rush. Filtered through Lev’s eyes, the same London gains new clothes: it departs from the fascination and becomes an unattractive sight, where people obsessing over status and success and poverty-stricken hamlets coexist shamelessly. Moreover, the urban imaginary that London creates shows a city that holds possibilities of friendship, sex, money without, however, offering real and durable connections: the city is an ephemeral construction that engages people and goods in a spiral of economic development. Obviously, the fascination for the ancient and crowded city of London is unshaken both to Lev and the other non-others in the novel , because it triggers them to behave actively and it toys with their identities and reactions.

                 Auror, on the other hand is the image of mother country- always a feminine construction calling for its departed. The poor village is nowhere near the fascination of novelty that London forges; on the contrary, it indulges its inhabitants- Rudi, Ina, Lora and Maya into the comforting bosom of tradition and old rules. However, there is no emptiness in Auror, as compared to London- where frugality and superficiality reign, in Lev’s opinion- because the village remains a composite until the final moment. Ina and Rudi, for instance, are stricken with the horror that their village is bound to disappear and remain a mere personal memory, but Lev manages to forge a piece of London and Auror in his new restaurant “          No. 43 in Podrorsky street”. His dream becomes, therefore, a reflection of how Lev’s identity suffered a refurbishment in a foreign city and in the midst of a new world. Accordingly, the end of the novel projects Lev in middle of his loved ones and in an urban locus that joins change and tradition- Baryn, as a personal town imbued with features of the raging modern and with characters belonging to the unforgotten past.

                 Eventually, the story of otherness that Rose Tremain tells in The Road Home is a cross-cultural account of partially-achieved great expectations, with a touch of postmodern identity conundrum. Whether the auctorial intentionality is derived towards placing the identity of the other in a position superior to the biased and materialism-infected same in the British crowd or towards a saving of the immigrant’s profile, the result is the same. Anchored in a pseudo-reality filled with change, modified feminine roles, altered friendship values and obsession over social status, the immigrant other, Lev is still at crossroads in a no man’s land: he can’t break from his native imbued identity simply because the alterative-an identity defined by emptiness- is no more promising. Consequently, the last resort to which one can appeal in the hectic world of consumerism is an untouched oasis of ethnic belonging: it is only through a backwards journey that Lev can reach a viable definition of his self and rediscover hope and a new form of self-assertiveness.

                 Bibliography:


Censorship versus sheer ignorance. Altering the course of Marlowe’s Tamburlaine the Great in the contemporary staging of the play


        By Ilieş Oana – Celia


        It would not have been particularly necessary to bring forth another essay on Christopher Marlowe, the contemporary of Shakespeare and the one universally regarded as the most gifted of the University Wits of the 16th century. Primarily, the intention was merely an extended presentation of a play not enough exploited by the contemporary directors, both in theatre and cinematography. However, the scarceness of modern representations in the theatrical world, together with the complete absence of any screenplay based on the play in question led eventually to oblivion and, in some cases, to inexcusable confusions, as to be proved in the present essay. The ultimate goal of the present paper would be to question how far should go the modern adaptors of the Marlowian text into a contemporary play and for this purpose, two representations will be brought into discussion - the 2005 Tamburlaine the Great of the Bristol Old Vic Theatre of Bristol, directed by Mr David Farr and the 1996 Tamerlan cel Mare at the National Theatre of Bucharest, directed by Mr. Victor Ioan Frunza and translated by Adrian Solomon and Leon Levitchi.

         The playwright acknowledged as the one who incorporated the iambic pentameter into the English drama, whose blank verse created a major shift between what was about to become a milestone in the history of literature and what the English literature had been by that time is also fairly famous for his powerful characters, true prototypes of titanic figures, be it through force and mercifulness - Tamburlaine, the Machiavellian shrewdness and revengeful spirit of Barabas, the Jew of Malta or the thirst for power of Dr. Faustus, a character to be particularly exploited furthermore by the world's literature. Out of the three, the character of the Scythian Shephearde taking over an immense part of the mediaeval world excels in brutality, amplified by his cruel nature as well as by his questionable royalty. This is why, despite its inherent stylistic awkwardness and its rather linear storyline, Tamburlaine the Great is generally regarded as one of the pre-Shakespearean masterpieces, and therefore the present times should do the playwright justice by staging the play more often.

         The plot summary might be treated furthermore too extensively, but that will simplify the understanding of the main character, as well as some comments to be made later on in this presentation. The play is based upon the ascension of the Tartar khan Timur Lenk, the one who kneeled down Baiazid, the Ottoman great Sultan. However, the Marlowian character is a "Scythian shepherd" and his area of conquests is much wider than the one of the historical Tamburlaine, otherwise the historical truth is leisurely respected. His expansion starts with Persia, whose ruler, Mycetes, is easily defeated with the large support of his own brother, Cosroe, fooled by Tamburlaine's promise that he would be crowned as king of Persia. The very first vile facet of the main character is soon to be revealed, but it is oddly connected with his single sign of humanity depicted along the entire play - his immense love for his "prey", Zenocrate, a noble Egyptian captured by Tamburlaine's hordes on her way to her husband to be. The scene ends with a Zenocrate lamenting for her faith - "I must be pleas'd perforce,—wretched Zenocrate!"  - to encounter her again few scenes later as a faithful and loving mistress of the barbarian ruler. Thus the love motif seems insufficiently exploited, as Marlowe is too willing to satisfy the contemporary taste for bloodshed, going further on with the conquests list. He seems determined to dehumanize his main character and maybe the most eloquent scene in this respect would be the massacre of the virgins of Damascus. Ignoring Tamburlaine's colour encoded warnings, the governor of Damascus cannot be saved by disaster even by Zenocrate's intervention in favour of her town - Tamburlaine's rotten soul will not be persuaded to give up his bloodshed politics.

         Yet the most powerful stage of Tamburlaine's grandeur will be that of capturing Bajazeth, the Turk sultan and the imprisonment of him and his wife, Zabina in a cage in which they will eventually find their deaths. The moment is historically real, hinting at the Battle of Ankara, 1402, nonetheless the suicide by hitting against the bars of the cage is not, at least not sufficient documented. Yet it is the most appealing way of terminating a famous figure, as from an Elizabethan playwright's standpoint. The public asks for violence and violence is utterly delivered, everything in a context of an immense sentiment of hatred towards the Muslim Turks. In this respect, Marlowe can be portrayed by the critics in the same terms they would use to describe a contemporary bestseller author - he simply delivers, he is the connoisseur of the Elizabethan crowd's taste, a public with no acquired taste, but ready at all times to impose its preferences towards the drama creators. This public will actually determine - through its positive response - the continuation of the history of the Scythe, maybe necessary since the first five acts seemed left unfinished. The storyline quality is however, significantly reduced, but who might have been looking for romance in Tamburlaine the Great, has eventually the chance to find out what happened to the sadist ruler's love-story with Zenocrate. Tamburlaine had sired three children - another opportunity for Marlowe to add cruelty to a character already bloodthirsty - as one of the three doesn't seem to share his love for war, preferring to spend time alongside his mother, he will end up as a victim of Tamburlaine's fury and despise. The finale is anticipated by Zenocrate's death, Tamburlaine will soon follow her in a death anything but glorious - not on a battle field, but tormented by a merciless disease. Could that be Marlowe's excuse for creating such a monster? Could it be, perhaps, a symbolization of the implacable faith that leads to the same ending conquer and conqueror altogether? Or maybe a divine response to the character's heresies and discontent towards divinity?

         That would conclude the summary and leave a door open to the second part of this presentation, which primarily aims at Christopher Marlowe's popularization in the Romanian cultural playground - media included. Back in 1995/1996 the director Victor Ioan Frunza pulled Marlowe out of libraries and offered him to the large audience by the means of an exceptional representation at the I.L. Caragiale National Theatre of Bucharest. V.I. Frunza had been harshly criticized at that time for practically ruining the budget of the theatre with the grandiose play, although a history play is always supposed to be a giant consumer of props, extras, stage up and down elevators etc. Despite an astonishing casting that included Ovidiu Iuliu Moldovan, Maia Morgenstern, Gh. Visu, Florina Cercel, Adrian Titieni and Leopoldina Balanuta, the play had a short life on the stage of the National Theatre, being suspended after only 6 or 7 representations. "The Scourge of God" remained, however, a mention of importance on O.I. Moldovan's curriculum vitae, as important as it was worth citing on the regretted actor's obituary. Unfortunately, Marlowe seems to have fallen in oblivion - unjustly and moreover, ironically if one thinks of his importance in the cultural ground in the English speaking world. Otherwise how could be explained the confusion made largely in the Romanian media, i.e. attributing Tamburlaine the Great to ... William Shakespeare? Guilty as charge, at a glance - Mediafax, ziare.com , neogen.ro , Gardianul, acasa.ro, hotnews.ro, unfortunately all of them newspapers or online publications with huge impact on the population. Is Shakespeare the creator of Tamburlaine for the subscribers of the afore-mentioned? Could that be a sarcastic response to the Shakespearean controversy and the theory of Marlowe writing under the pseudonym William Shakespeare? Or is it just sheer ignorance?
        Last but not least, the present essay aims at pointing out the religious issues regarding Marlowe and his works. Whether he was an atheist in the modern sense of the term or just an enemy of the official denomination, it's still something to debate upon, although the simple lecture of his major plays would somehow draw the line. Atheist or not, Marlowe seemed to pay no respect to religions of any kind, since his lines can be sometimes regarded as anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim. Tamburlaine the Great is undoubtedly self-explanatory in this respect, as the main character lines are as daring as "My sword hath sent millions of Turks to hell, Slew all his priests, his kinsmen, and his friends, And yet I live untouch'd by Mahomet. [....] Now Mahomet, if thou have any power, Come down thyself and work a miracle. Thou art not worthy to be worshipped That suffers flames of fire to burn the writ Wherein the sum of thy religion rests......Well soldiers, Mahomet remains in hell; (Act V Scene 1). Guided by an access of politically-correctness, a British director, David Farr, decides to censor the entire scene of the burning of the Koran books, in order to avoid Muslim anger, as reported by The Times (November 24th, 2005). He goes as far as replacing the reference to the Koran with a generic "a load of books", thus altering the idea of the text. In his defence, the director will claim in The Guardian (November 25th) that he only intended to shorten up the seven hours text into a 3-hours performance and that his decision had nothing to do with the politically-correctness towards the Muslims. However, this explanation can be hardly accepted as such, since the scene has not been removed, but modified. And this time it is not sarcasm, but sheer ignorance. Ignorance towards the respect due to one of the greatest Renaissance figures in the British and even European portrait gallery.

         Naturally, a new question rises – i.e. how much is a modern director entitled to operate on the original text of a drama. David Farr, quoted above, has a valid point in this respect. No one can reasonably ask for a seven hours representation, unless this might become a mini-series on television or some such. Therefore, a fairly large amount of scenes have to be cut and that is one of the flaws of the Marlowian text – it allows the director and the script writer to interfere too much. Running over the play – or the two plays, if some prefers that way – Tamburlaine the Great, one cannot help noticing that the sole disposable elements might be the battle scenes, firstly because they tend to overload uselessly the dramatic representation, secondly, as previously stated, because they require a great deal of props and personnel on the stage. Of course, it’s inadmissible to give up on the key-scenes – such as the crowning, the conquest of Damascus, the defeat of Bajazeth and our very issue, the burning of the Koran, which is defining for the main character’s philosophy. David Farr had foreseen it so he didn’t leave the scene aside, but he made a bigger mistake by altering the text he kept. Secondary subplots, as the Balsera scene, can be left aside with no regret, as they are not practically focussed on the main character and they seem somehow to affect the very fluidity of the scenario. At some point, Marlowe seemed to have realised that his play had practically only one character and an entire army of extras, with or without lines and he might have tried to fix this by adding extra-conflicts to a play already too agglomerated. Indeed, the scene adds humanity to Theridamas and it might stand as an attempt of Marlowe to create his single powerful and worth mentioning feminine character, as Olympia’s behaviour can suggest a prototype of an authentic Greek tragedy heroine. However, the subplot is again insufficiently exploited and that turns it into a disposable one.

         Yet we haven’t obtained the response to the major question of this presentation – is the altering of the classical texts recommended or at least, permitted? We might make an effort of imagination and give rise to a virtual debate between scholars on one side and those who directly deliver the art to the masses – the actors and the directors. The scholars would definitely reject such interference, especially from a diachronic point of view – for example, a 1587 text should preserve 16th century’s characteristics, no matter how obsolete or even politically incorrect those characteristics might seem to a modern audience. Marlowe’s works would appear even more untouchable from this standpoint, as the Renaissance playwright is universally acknowledged as much more than a notice in a very exhaustive history of literature. Once the original text had suffered the action of an intrusive factor, its very essence is altered.

         At the opposite pole, an actor / director would sustain the necessity of bringing about his own interpretation of the text, arguing that a literary work should allow each and everyone to view its content from his/her own point of view. This is what David Farr claimed to have made by imposing Tamburlaine as an oppressor of the religion in general and not a declared enemy of the Muslims. He understood Tamburlaine as a self-centred character towards whom any form of organised religion is not of importance and acted consequently. That, if you take for granted his statement in The Guardian, cited above. Otherwise, his act is nothing but an expression of the politically-correctness so dear to the contemporary world, or, even worse, an expression of denial of his national literary value in a political context. Of course, the terrorist attacks against London in the same year might have left a terrific impression and perhaps the spirits shouldn’t have been even more agitated by means of a play with such possible interpretations as the hatred towards the Muslims, but can it pass for a reasonable excuse to re—write an entire scene of a play written more than 400 years ago? Even when the adaptor claims to do Marlowe "a favour" by expressing the author anti-religious feelings more clearly?

         Whether the British director's position is at least accessible through the communication channels, we find ourselves in the dark when it comes to the second object of our analysis, Frunza's Tamerlan. The issues are much more serious here, as we deal with an even greater amount of changes brought to the original play. Since the sources are not very helpful, an appeal to personal memories has to be done and that points out particularly the presence of an "oracle" functioning as a prologue and interludes, but especially the changing of the course of the play by replacing Theridamas with Calyphas for the Balsera episode and, even more, by replacing the murder of the youngest son of Tamburlaine with a tragic suicide. Almost Shakespearean, since his suicide comes as a result of Olympia's death. It truly sounds like a pattern and Frunza might have thought of the commercial success of Romeo and Juliet (staged at that time by the National Theatre under the direction of Mrs. Beatrice Bleont) and he might have acted accordingly. Indeed this added some passionate elements to a play of a rather monotonous storyline but couldn't have Marlowe done it himself if he desired? He preferred instead a neutral "Theridamas goes out with the body" and went on to another stage, leaving the subplot aside, probably also as a result of his singular concern with his titanic character, whom he had endowed with everything he could gather together to create the supreme mighty hero, including a mythological culture beyond his natural power of expression. Then again, this aspect can be regarded either as another flaw of the writing, i.e. the incapacity of Marlowe to expand his focus further than only one character, or as a conscious effort to withdraw the Elizabethan audience's attention towards Tamburlaine only. The latter would condemn the Romanian director for misunderstanding the aim of the play itself, but neither the former would be more excusable in the eyes of a scholar.

         Less appealing to a modern audience than Shakespeare's plays, much more difficult to stage because of the abundance of characters and battle scenes, lacking the ability to keep the spectator's eye open along the entire play due to a certain monotony, Marlowe's Tamburlaine still has its merits in creating such a mighty character and also in imposing a stylistic feature of great importance. Partly due to a shift in the cultural mentality and taste, being unable - unlike Shakespeare - to create writings and characters to transcend the epoch they were made in, Christopher "Kit" Marlowe can be easily regarded as obsolete in the theatrical world of the 21st century, nevertheless, lame interventions in his "mighty lines" shouldn't be accepted beyond the inevitable temporal limitations.

        

         Bibliography


         

RECENZIE PAUL CORNEA,

         DELIMITǍRI ŞI IPOTEZE: COMUNICǍRI ŞI ESEURI DE

         TEORIE LITERARǍ ŞI STUDII CULTURALE


        

de Iacob Ioana Florina


        Argumentarea sinteticã pe care Paul Cornea, scriitor şi critic prolific în domeniul literaturii contemporane, o susţine în Delimitãri şi ipoteze: comunicãri şi eseuri de teorie literarã şi studii literare, publicatã la Polirom, 2008, echivaleazã cu succes o tentativã ( şi, implicit, reuşitã) de a examina multiple prolegomene ce stau la baza teoriilor literare curente. Discursul minuţios pe care Paul Cornea îl utilizeazã drept instrument de analizã a tendinţelor literare îi permite scriitorului o clarificare şi, mai important, o delimitare genericã a conceptelor de uz literar, aplicabilã contextelor tematice pe care le abordeazã. Intr-adevãr, în eseurile şi comunicãrile incluse în Delimitãri şi Ipoteze, se resimte detaşat o tonalitate temperatã de oralitate, însã şi un dialogism suprastructurat în vederea tratãrii conceptuale specifice structuralismului, deconstructivismului, romantismului, iluminismului sau modernismului.

         Dacã Paul Cornea actualizeazã, prin scriitura sa, valori literare al cãror prag de comprehensiune se realizeazã în temeiul laconic al eseului şi comunicãrii, atunci intenţionalismul aferent s-ar rezuma la o dezbatere argumentativã a temelor-maşinaţiuni abordate: Luminile, Romantismul, Statutul literaturii, Canonul, Istorie Literarã, Teoria lecturii, Comparatism şi Studii culturale. Astfel, condensul tematic al cãrţii postuleazã completãri sau corecturi la literatura de specialitate în vogã, elucidând lacune şi inadvertenţe reale la nivelul aparatului critic.

         Pornind de la percepţia teoriei cã un construct ambivalent ce include „doctrina” şi „ipoteza” – „voi reaminti cele douã sensuri comune: doctrinã( ansamblu de idei aplicate unui domeniu particular al cunoaşterii ) şi cel de ipotezã(construcţie intelectualã metodicã şi organizatã)[...]Funcţionalã azi e o combinare sui-generis a celor douã sensuri.” (p.11)-Cornea instituie noi premise în sfera luminilor şi luminismelor. Ocurenţa propagãrii tendinţelor literare din Epoca Luminilor cade, în opinia autorului, sub incidenţa unei pseudo-teorii a modelelor, ce permite receptarea ideologicã în funcţie de tiparul sociologic sau de „adaptarea selectivã.”

         Cum se preteazã modelele în cazul unei recontextualizãri literare sau culturale? pare a fi punctul de analizã a lui Cornea în secţiunea destinatã Iluminismului. Insã „alegerea modelelor”, constituent marcant în proliferarea de asemãnãri cu Occidentul se opune vehement „adaptãrii selective”, ce traseazã delimitãrile faţã de acelaşi Occident. Mai mult, difuziunea „luminãtorului” denotã un act de „policentrism”şi marcheazã o traiectorie adiacentã ideologiei naţiunii în cauzã, mai mult decât ar funcţiona ( ipotetic) o echivalenţã pragmaticã între Luminismele europene. Autorul analizeazã aceste potenţe unificatoare şi transgresive prin intercalarea ideologicului cu sociologia literarã care se muleazã pe „mentalitatea colectivã, întrucât uniformitatea omnipotentã nu mai are validitate în contextul lecturii. In schimb, „discontinuitatea” de la nivelul istoriei literare permite o restructurare efemerã a corpusului şi reprezentãrii intelectuale într-un spaţiu cu denivelãri socialo-culturale.

         Operând cu semnificaţii valorice ale istoriei – „sursa din care se extrag compensaţii pentru prezent” (p.71)- Cornea jongleazã cu stindarde ale „localului” şi „universalului” , unde aplicabilitatea adaptãrii selective este imuabilã. Ce se întâmplã, însã, o datã cu arborarea acestor concepte în spaţiul revoluţionar din contextul Romantic? Nimic altceva decât o previzualizare a carnavalescului Bahtian, încastratã în manifestarea revoluţionarã. Exemplul potenţat de autor- cel al evenimentului din 6 septembrie 1848, cu arderea Regulamentului Organic- intensificã distorsionarea Romanticã a echilibrului şi indicã exact spaţiul de estompare între delimitãri stricto-sensu (sacru/profan, iconic/politic). In consecinţã, universalizarea, respectiv localizarea se aplicã revoluţionarismului Romantic în disponibilitatea interpretativã a celebrãrii spontaneitãţii ideologice, dar, neapãrat în contextul contingenţelor unitare.

         In aceeaşi tendinţã de a pragmatiza suportul teoretic expus în cadrul „Statutului Literaturii”             (Wellek, Genette, Schmidt), Paul Cornea identificã substructurile identitare ale operei literare „ structura materialã (artefactul), ce reprezintã ansamblul de cuvinte, propoziţii şi fraze integrate într-un corpus mai mult sau mai puţin coerent, şi structura simbolicã, ce trimite la modalitãţile specifice de articulare semanticã şi esteticã a conţinutului.”(p. 122) De la aceastã semiclasificare poziţiile tind sã se extindã înspre modalitatea de percepere a literararitãţii de cãtre cele douã direcţii generate de procesul de operare al artei. Dacã esenţialiştii configureazã literararitatea prin transbordarea textului în operã literarã, pentru empirişti intervine o nouã dogmã: literaritatea devine un construct intangibil generat invariabil de cititor şi a sa „convenţie comunitarã”. Autorul derivã din acest fundament teoretic o reglementare criticã unilateral aplicabilã, impunând necesitatea de a identifica sensul literaritaţii, de a percepe intenţionalitatea auctorialã şi de a configura delimitãrile aferente operei literare.

         Referitor la structurile ambivalente ale operei literare, apare în textul de faţã o divergenţã ce se doreşte a fi aplanatã în vederea permisivitãţii teoretice. Concret, poziţionând evaluarea lui Schmidt despre diferenţele ce separã sistemul de structurã la un pol al literaturii, autorul genereazã o subcategorie, conform cãreia omogenitatea devine factor distinctiv în delimitarea celor douã domenii. Dar, ceea ce Paul Cornea insinueazã este faptul cã este inerentã o insistenţă pe „frontierele literaturii” şi astfel separarea sistemului de contextul sãu atributiv devine o perspectivã în van, în care atât autoreferenţialitatea, cât şi autoorganizarea îşi pierd din principialitatea constructivã.( De aici şi rolul conceptualizãrii sistemului, care ia o formã tripartitã: reprezintã mai bine activitatea literarã, modeleazã domeniul literar şi diagnosticheazã literatura.)

         Dezbaterea propusã de autor în capitolul Canonul prefigureazã o abordare dualã, construitã pe principiul acţiune-reacţiune ca mecanism stringent al procesului selectiv şi decisiv în literaturã şi criticã. Pornind de la delimitarea teoreticã a lui D. Fokkema şi de la cercetãrile lui Robert Escarpit, Paul Cornea introduce o nouã regulã în jocul de-a literatura: modelul canonic (p. 149), fundamentat pe o structurã piramidalã de niveluri, menit sã demonstreze axa descendentã a stabilitãţii canonice literare. Selecţia canonicã influenţeazã fiecare astfel de etapã, iar rezultatul este mereu unul decrepit, deoarece consensul devine inegal, fracturat şi în ultimã instanţã relativ, în funcţie de poziţia de refracţie.

         Caracterul aparent lax cu care pare a fi înzestrat canonul literar nu disculpã însã proliferarea unei direcţii de divergenţã, ci faciliteazã ipoteza cã, în mod constant, în paralel cu un canon bine conturat existã şi un anticanon potenţat de grupurile defavorizate şi, mai grav, se intensificã un mediu de entertainment, care erodeazã universalismul implicit al canonului. Ce se întâmplã, astfel, cu stabilitatea şi potenţa canonicã a criticii asupra literaturii? întreabã Cornea. In mod complet ironic, se vorbeşte de o canonizare a industriei divertismentului mai mult decât s-ar vorbi de o reconfigurare sui-generis a canonului şi anticanonului literare.

         O altã chestiune de importanţã majorã în Delimitãri şi ipoteze este persepctiva de abordare a contextului în care se prefigureazã subgenurile istoriei literare şi mecanismul de funcţionare a teoriei lecturii. Sintetizând distincţia dintre criticã literarã şi istorie literarã (cea din urmã fiind mai puţin pliabilã la metode noi de evaluare), autorul condiţioneazã funcţionarea istoriei literare de scopul acesteia: „de a construi tabloul sintetic al uneia sau mai multor epoci literare” (p. 181) şi îi atribuie o clasificare aferentã: analiza de text, antologia, istoria literaturii.

         Intr-o teoretizare a lecturii, rolul principal este indubitabil distribuit lectorului, ca mecanism de descifrare si contect comunicativ pentru autor si text. Ceea ce Cornea aduce în discuţie este tipul de lector care face obiectul acestei teorii: lectorul virtual, lectorul real, implizierte leser, respectiv lectorul expert şi care trebuie sã depãşeascã „misterul codificãrii” în pofida riscurilor aferente. Cum trece lectorul de la postura de „marionetã inteligibilã”  la un lector care, conform lui Jauss, este capabil sã jongleze cu percepţia esteticã, interpretarea retrospectivã şi comentariul istoric rãmâne o chestiune abstractã. Adiacent teoriei lecturii este şi cazul intenţionalitãţii, în elaborarea cãruia Paul Cornea pleacã de la teoretizarea lui Hirsch. Intenţia auctorialã, un proiect creator ce se dezvaluie concomitent cu desfãşurarea acesteia, conduce invariabil atât la descifrarea convenţiei şi cifrului textual, însã, mai important, la identificarea rolului autorului. Entitatea autorialã se înscrie în trei tipare fundamentale: „proprietar, conducãtor de joc şi experimentator ludic”, fiecare corespunzând etapei piramidale canonice mai sus-enunţate. Interpretarea, ca derivat al intenţionalitãţii, se leagã astfel imanent de procesul de decodare, fãrã a genera însã carenţe contextuale autorului.

         O chestiune finalã care necesitã nuanţare este partea de încheiere din Delimitãri şi ipoteze , unde focalizarea este asupra studiilor comparatiste şi culturale, ca o reprezentare a unui relativism specific. Postulatele relativiste pe care Paul Cornea le enunţã (p. 248) nu fac decât sã instituie o reglementare a raportului dialogic cu „celalalt” şi furnizeazã un context imuabil pentru realizatea fuziunii textuale. Paradoxul mitului, sau „aparenta imposibilitate de a rezolva aporia dintre demitizare şi remitizare” (p.275) aduce în prim plan vocaţia de hermeneut a autorului, care purcede imediat la o clasificare hermeneuticã pe modelul bipartit: hermeneutism arheologic şi eshatologic.

         Delimitãrile instituite de Cornea prevãd mai mult decât o analizã a poziţiei mitului în spaţiul concav al creaţiei artistice, ci invitã la o vizualizare în perspectivã asupra imaginii şi imaginarului creativ. Tuşa finalã vine simultan cu proiecţia asupra traiectoriei modernitãţii, pe care autorul o vede din unghiul lui Northrop Frye: epoca modernã, „ prima civilizaţie care s-a studiat pe sine” (p. 297), induce o nouã percepţie asupra creaţiei artistice, prin coordonarea activã a lectorului şi a scriiturii şi prin atribuirea unui ritm alert şi noi dimensiuni de timp-spaţiu.

         Inzestratã cu un aparat critic extrem de variat şi uneori divergent, cu o texturã plurivalentã şi un câmp tematic multicultural şi polivalent, Delimitãri şi ipoteze încearcã sã contureze o modernizare în plafonul teoretic al esteticii şi sociologiei literare prin intercalarea de canoane comparatiste. Rezultatul, scontat sau nu, este unul în favoarea autorului, care, prin metode didactice şi tactice vãdit pedagogice realizeazã un real edificiu sistemic al literaturii vãzute din perspective distincte.