A tanatopoética de Sarah Kane: escritos para a morte

Abstract

This research is the outcome of a theoretical-analytical consideration about the dramaturgical works of the british playwright Sarah Kane. About the way she structures and articulate an unceasing dialogue in her writings with the dead (the dramaturgical tradition); about the dead (the different ideas and notions about death in the urban life); and with the ones that are going to die, i.e. herself in autobiographical registers. The work focuses, specifically, at the analysis of her three last plays: Cleansed (1998), Crave (1998), and 4.48 Psychosis (2000), taking into consideration the development of the notions and elements that build the Thanatopoetic concept. The particular interests of this work are the notions of writing and performative writing applied to the analysis and contextualization of Kane’s work at the theatre history, since those notions allow the comprehension and approach of the plays through a performative bias. This work also identifies, develops and invests the notion of the ‘Golem’ character as a dual or shadow device, to discuss and enroll matters from the playwright’s intimate universe. For the discussion of these notions, the author uses ideas from Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Alex Beigui, Diana Klinger and Gershom Scholem. The study about death and the thanatological phenomenology will be conducted with the analysis of the writings, in its direct theme approach, or through references, quotations and metaphors used by the playwright to elaborate her ‘Death poetic’, or Thanatopoetic. For that, the author takes into consideration the works of Edgar Morin, Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Heidegger, Arthur Schopenhauer, Heiner Müller, Vladimir Safatle, among others. This work also identifies in Kane an author that pays tribute to the historical lineage of the Absurd theatre, without officially recognizing or assuming such affiliation, but instead transcending it with the overcoming of what was her biggest intent; the annihilation of and escape from the theatrical language.