“Bu büyük bir hikâye:” J. M. Synge’in The Playboy of the Western World oyununu ulusötesi alegorisi olarak okumak

Öz

Fredric Jameson tarafından ortaya atılan “ulusal alegori” kavramı özellikle postkolonyal çalışmalarda önemli düzeyde eleştirel tartışmaya konu olmuştur. Bu kavramla ilgili tartışmalar çoğunlukla Jameson’ın “tüm” üçüncü dünya edebi metinlerinin kaçınılmaz biçimde “ulusal alegori” sınıfına dâhil olduğu şeklindeki görüşü üzerine odaklanır. Bu bağlamda “ulus,” alegorik yankılarla bezenmiş metinlerin bilhassa ulus devlete göndermede bulunarak geliştiği temel kavramsal çerçeveyi ortaya koyar. Jameson’ın yaklaşımı sanat eserlerinin ardındaki dolaylı siyasal boyutu belirten “siyasal bilinçdışı” kavramıyla birlikte düşünüldüğünde daha da anlam kazanır. Burada Jameson sanat eserlerinin bilinçdışı düzeyde hissedilen tarihi ve ekonomik gerçeklerin ürettiği koşulların birer ürünü olduğunu öne sürer. J. M. Synge’in The Playboy of the Western World oyunu bu bakımdan Jameson izleğinde bir okuma yapma olanağı sunar; zira İrlandalıların İngiliz hâkimiyetinden bağımsızlık kazanma çabaları oyunun dramatik dünyasına baba-oğul arasındaki Odipal bir gerginlik biçiminde aktarılır. Bununla birlikte, oyun net sınırları olan bir milliyet anlayışını yeniden üretmekten kaçındığı için basite indirgenmiş bir ulusal alegoriyi içermez. Bu çalışma, Synge’in radikal milliyetçi ideolojilerin ötesine geçen bir “ulusötesi” duruma seslendiğini ve arka plandaki dolaylı anlatının göçebe bir “öteyi” tahayyül etme çağrısıyla yeni bir ulus yaklaşımını benimseyen “ulusötesi bir alegori” ortaya koyduğunu iddia eder.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• ulusötesi alegorisi
• Jameson
• Synge
• Playboy of the Western World
• göçebelik

“That’s a grand story:” Reading J. M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World as a postnational allegory

Abstract

The concept of “national allegory” formulated in Fredric Jameson’s work on the third-world literatures has been the subject of much critical debate, especially in the context of postcolonial studies. The dispute surrounding the term is closely tied to Jameson’s controversial suggestions such as the view that “all” third-world literary texts inevitably fall into the category of “national allegory”. The “nation” in this sense provides the main conceptual framework out of which literary texts imbued with “allegorical resonances” develop by specifically addressing the nation state. Jameson’s formulation acquires further significance when it is reciprocally held with his concept of the “political unconscious”, which refers to the implicit political aspect behind creative works. Jameson suggests that artistic works are the products of unconsciously felt political and cultural conditions laid out by latent historical and economic realities. J.M Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World lends itself to a Jamesonian reading in that the Irish efforts to achieve independence from British rule are transmuted into the dramatic world of the play in the form of an Oedipal tension between a father and a son. However, the play does not put forward a simplistic allegory of the nation since the text itself avoids reproducing a picture of a clear-cut nationhood. This essay argues that Synge’s play addresses a “postnational” condition transcending the militant nationalist ideologies and produces a “postnational allegory” in which the suggestive background points at a new rationale for defining the nation with a call for imagining a nomadic “beyond”.

Keywords

• postnational allegory
• Jameson
• Synge
• The Playboy of the Western World
• nomadic

Kaynakça

1. Ahmad, A. (1987). Jameson’s rhetoric of otherness and the “National Allegory”. Social Text, (17), 3-25.
2. Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Verso.
3. Barthes, R. (1967). Writing degree zero, and elements of semiology. Jonathan Cape.
4. Benson, E. (1982). J. M. Synge. Macmillan..........................
5. Bigley, B. (1977). The Playboy of the Western World as antidrama. Modern Drama, 20(2), 157-168.
6. Boynton, T. J. (2012). “The Fearful Crimes of Ireland”: tabloid journalism and Irish nationalism in The playboy of the western world. Eire-Ireland, 47(3-4), 230-250.
7. Brazeau, R. (2009). ‘But we’re only talking, maybe’: language, desire, and the arrival of the present in
8. Synge's Playboy of the Western World. Irish Studies Review, 17(2), 153-166.

9. Burke, M. (2016). The riot of spring: Synge’s ‘Failed Realism’ and the peasant drama. The Oxford Handbook of Modern Irish Theatre. Oxford University Press.
10. Castle, G. (1997). Staging ethnography: John M. Synge’s “Playboy of the Western World” and the problem of cultural translation. Theatre Journal, 49(3), 265-286.
11. Collins, C. (2011). Synge scholarship: nothing to do with nationalism? Theatre Research International, 36(3), 272-275.
12. Collins, C. (2016a). J. M. Synge’s The playboy of the western world. Routledge.
13. Collins, C. (2016b). Theatre and residual culture: J. M. Synge and pre-Christian Ireland. Palgrave.
14. Collins, C. (2020). Introduction. The playboy of the western world. Methuen.
15. Cusak, G. (2002). “In the Gripe of the Ditch”: nationalism, famine, and The Playboy of the Western World. Modern Drama, 45(4), 567-592.
16. DeLanda, M. (2002). Intensive science and virtual philosophy. Continuum.
17. Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus. University of Minnesota Press.
18. de Man, P. (1979). Allegories of reading: figural language in Rousseau, Nietzsche, Rilke, and Proust. Yale University Press.
19. Devlin, J. (2013). J.M. Synge’s the playboy of the western world and the culture of western Ireland under late colonial rule. Modern Drama, 41(3), 371-385.
20. Driss, H. B. (2018). Nomadic genres: the case of the short story cycle. Mosaic: An interdisciplinary critical journal, 51(2), 59-74.
21. Fan, C. T. (2017). Battle hymn of the Afropolitan: Sino-African futures in Ghana Must Go and Americanah. Journal of Asian American Studies, 20(1), 69-93.
22. Fletcher, A. (1964). Allegory: the theory of a symbolic mode. Cornell University Press.
23. Gelber, A. (1982). Review: The political unconscious: narrative as a socially symbolic act. MLN, 97(5), 1228-1231.
24. Greene, D. H. (1947). The “Playboy” and Irish nationalism. The Journal of English and German Philology, 46(2), 199-204.
25. Grene, N. (1985). Synge: A critical study of his plays. Macmillan.
26. Grene, N. (1999). The politics of Irish drama: plays in context from Boucicault to Friel. Cambridge University Press.
27. Grubgeld, E. (1988). Verbal Geographies: Synge’s Playboy of the Western World. Studies in English, New Series, 6(1), 22.
28. Hirsch, E. (1983). The gallous story and the dirty deed: the two playboys. Modern Drama, 26(1), 85-102.
29. Hwang, H. S. (2017). The political unconscious staged in JM Synge’s the playboy of the western world. The Journal of Modern English Drama, 30(3), 279-308.
30. Innes, C. L. (2009). Postcolonial Synge. The Cambridge Companion to JM Synge. Cambridge University Press.
31. Jameson, F. (1981). The political unconscious: narrative as a socially symbolic act. Cornell University Press.
32. Jameson, F. (1986). Third-world literature in the era of multinational capitalism. Social Text, (15), 65-88.
33. Jameson, F. (2020). Allegory and ideology. Verso Books.
34. Kelsall, M. (1994). Introduction. The Playboy of the Western World. A&C Black.
35. Kiberd, D. (1995). Inventing Ireland. Harvard University Press.
36. King, M.C. (1985). The drama of J. M. Synge. Syracuse University Press.
37. Kojima, C. (1998). JM Synge and nationalism: concerning “The Playboy of the Western World”. TheHarp, 50-60.
38. Krause, D. (1971). Sean O’Casey and the higher nationalism: the desecration of Ireland’s household gods. Theatre and nationalism in twentieth-century Ireland. University of Toronto Press. Lachman, M. (2018). Performing character in modern Irish drama: between art and society. Palgrave.
39. Levitt, P. M. (2007). Fathers and sons in Synge’s the playboy of the western world. The Explicator, 66(1), 18-21.
40. Lyotard, J-F. (1984). The postmodern condition: A report on knowledge. Manchester University Press.
41. McDonald, R. (2002). Tragedy and Irish literature: Synge, O’Casey, Beckett. Palgrave.
42. McQuillan, M. (2001). Paul de Man. Routledge...................
43. Mohanty, S. (1997). Literary theory and the claims of history: postmodernism, objectivity, multicultural politics. Cornell University Press.
44. Moore-Gilbert, B. (2017). AB Yehoshua and David Grossman: towards postnational (ist) allegories? Interventions, 20(1), 58-73.
45. Murray, C. (1997). Twentieth-century Irish drama: Mirror up to nation. Syracuse University Press.
46. O’Driscoll, R. (1971). Introduction. Theatre and nationalism in twentieth-century Ireland. University of Toronto Press
47. Pilkington, L. (2007). The “Folk” and an Irish theater: re-reading J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World. The Princeton University Library Chronicle, 68(1-2), 295-305.
48. Raja, M. A. (2007). The King Buzzard: Bano Qudsia’s postnational allegory and the nation-state. Mosaic: A journal for the interdisciplinary study of literature, 95-110.
49. Roberts, A. (2000). Fredric Jameson. Routledge.
50. Roche, A. (2015). The Irish dramatic revival 1899-1939. Bloomsbury Methuen.
51. Synge, J.M. (1981). The complete plays. Methuen.
52. Tambling, J. (2010). Allegory. Routledge.................
53. Tenorio, E.H. (2010). The playboy of the western world: The subversion of a traditional conception of Irishness?. Journal of Literary Studies, 15(3-4), 425-458.