Madun Konuşuyor: Anna Weamys’in A Continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia’sına Foucault’cu Bir Bakış

Year 2021, , 159 - 176, 07.06.2021

Merve Aydoğdu Çelik

https://doi.org/10.21497/sefad.943987

Abstract

Bu makale Anna Weamys’in A Continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia eserinde hizmetçi Mopsa’nın Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’ın madunun konuşup konuşamayacağı hususundaki sorusuna nasıl olumsuz bir cevap oluşturduğunu inceler. Çalışma, Michel Foucault’nun iktidar ve direniş düşüncesi doğrultusunda, Spivak’ın önerdiğinin aksine, madunun sesini yükseltebileceğini ve direniş gösterebileceğini ortaya koyar. Sir Philip Sidney’in The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia eserinde kraliyet üyeleri arasında Mopsa’ya konuşma fırsatı verilmez, fakat Weamys, Sidney’in yorumunu altüst eder ve onun eylem ve sesini duyurmasına olanak vererek maduniyetini aşma fırsatı sağlar. Bu çerçevede, Anna Weamys’in romansı, Foucault’nun iktidar teorisi bağlamında, Spivak’ın madunun tanınmasının imkânsızlığı hususundaki varsayımına karşı bir meydan okuma olarak değerlendirilebilir.

Keywords

Rönesans, romans, madun, güç, direniş

The Subaltern Speaks in Anna Weamys’ A Continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia: A Foucauldian Perspective

Abstract

This paper examines how the servant Mopsa in Anna Weamys’ A Continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia provides a negative answer to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s question whether the subaltern can speak. In accordance with Michel Foucault’s thoughts on power and resistance, it intends to reveal that the subaltern, contrary to what Spivak proposes, is able to raise voice and demonstrate resistance. Mopsa has not been given the chance to speak among the royals in Sir Philip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, but Weamys deconstructs Sidney’s version and provides Mopsa the opportunity to transcend subalternity as she asserts her action and voice. Within this framework, Anna Weamys’ romance can be read, in the context of Foucault’s theory on power, as a challenge against Spivak’s assumption which contends that the subaltern is not recognizable.

Keywords

Renaissance, romance, subaltern, power, resistance

References

• Baker, N. (2007). ‘To make love to a deformity’: praising ugliness in early modern England. Renaissance Studies, 22(1), 86-109. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/24417349.
• Baumbach, S. (2010). Physiognomy. In M. Hattaway (Ed.), A new companion to English Renaissance literature and culture (pp. 582-97). Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
• Burnett, M. T. (1997). Masters and servants in English Renaissance drama and culture: Authority and obedience. London: Macmillan.
• Campbell, J. (2006). Literary circles and gender in early modern Europe: A cross-cultural approach. Aldershot: Ashgate.
• Cullen, P. C. (1994). Introduction. In P. C. Cullen (Ed.), A Continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia (pp. xvii-lxxiii). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Dell’Abate-Çelebi, B. (2016). Penelope’s daughters. Nebraska: Zea Books.
• Derecho, A. (2006). Archontic literature: a definition, a history, and several theories of fan fiction. In K. Hellekson & K. Busse (Eds.), Fan fiction and fan communities in the age of the internet: New Essays (pp. 61-78). Jefferson: Macfarland & Company.
• DeZur, K. (2014). Gender, interpretation, and political rule in Sidney’s Arcadia. Newark: University of Delaware Press.
• Eckerle, J. A. (2013). Romancing the self in early modern Englishwomen’s life writing. Farnham: Ashgate.
• Farr, P. M. (2019). Subalternity as margin and center of anachronistic discourse. Çankaya University Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences, 13(1), 62-78. Retrieved from https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/750866.
• Ferguson, M. W. (1996). Renaissance concepts of the ‘women writer.’ In H. Wilcox (Ed.), Women and literature in Britain, 1500-1700 (pp. 143-68). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Foucault, M (1978). The history of sexuality volume 1: An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans). New York: Random House.
• Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977 (C. Gordon, L. Marshall, J. Mepham, K. Soper, Trans.) New York: Pantheon.
• Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777-95. Retrieved from https://www.jstor.org/stable/1343197.
• Foucault, M. (2006). Psychiatric power: Lectures at the Collège de France 1973-74 (G. Burchell, Trans.) Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Fredrickson, B. L. & T. A. Roberts. (1997). Objectification theory: toward understanding women’s lived experiences and mental health risks. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 21, 173-206.
• Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Oxford: Polity Press.
• Gramsci, A. (1999). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: The Electric Book Company.
• Guillory, J. (1996). From the superfluous to the supernumerary: reading gender into Paradise Lost. In E. Harvey & K. E. Maus (Eds.), Soliciting interpretation: Literary theory and seventeenth-century English poetry (pp. 68-88). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Hackett, H. (2000). Women and romance fiction in the English Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Hager, A. (Ed.). (2005). Encyclopedia of British writers: 16th and 17th centuries. New York: Facts on File.
• Hoare, Q. & G. Nowell-Smith. (1999). Preface. In Q. Hoare & G. Nowell-Smith (Eds.), Selections from the Prison Notebooks (pp. 13-21). London: The Electric Book Company.
• Howard, J. E. (1988). Cross-dressing, the theatre and gender struggle in early modern England. Shakespeare Quarterly, 39(4), 418-40. doi: 10.2307/2870706.
• Kinney, C. (2009). Undoing romance: Beaumont and Fletcher’s resistant reading of The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia. In M. E. Lamb & V. Wayne (Eds.), Staging early modern romance: Prose fiction, dramatic romance, and Shakespeare (pp. 203-218). New York: Routledge.
• Lamb, M. E. (1990). Gender and authorship in the Sidney circle. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
• McLaren, M. A. (2002). Feminism, Foucault, and embodied subjectivity. New York: State University of New York Press.
• Mills, S. (2003). Michel Foucault. London and New York: Routledge.
• Mitchell, M. (2005). Anna Weamys. London and New York: Routledge.
• Morris, R. (2010). Introduction. In R. Morris (Ed.), Can the subaltern speak?: Reflections on the history of an idea (1-18). New York: Columbia University Press.
• Morton, S. (2003). Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. London: Routledge.
• Pitts, V. L. (2003). In the flesh: The cultural politics of body modification. Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Sidney, P. (1907). The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia. London: Routledge. (Original work published 1593)
• Simonova, N. (2015). Early modern authorship and gender in early modern Europe: Adaptation and ownership from Sidney to Richardson. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Spivak, G. C. (1994). Can the Subaltern Speak? In P. Williams & L. Chrismas (Eds.), Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory: A reader (pp. 66-111). New York: Columbia University Press.
• Travitsky, B. S. (1996). The possibilities of prose. In H. Wilcox (Ed.), Women and literature in Britain, 1500-1700 (pp. 234-66). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Vives, J. L. (2000). The instruction of a Christian woman: A sixteenth century manual. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Wald, C. (2014). The reformation of romance: The Eucharist, disguise, and foreign fashion in early modern prose fiction. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter.
• Weamys, A. (1994). A Continuation of Sir Philip Sidney’s Arcadia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1651)
• Weedon, C. (1987). Feminist practice and poststructuralist theory. London: Blackwell.