A study of the plays of Howard Barker, with special reference to the artist figures

This thesis attempts to examine Howard Barker's plays and trace his evolution, both politically and as a dramatist, emphasising his oppositional and subversive orientation, as well as to demonstrate the shapes through which his oppositional stance is manifested. The first part consists of two chapters, the first of which is concerned with Barker's reactions to works by fellow-authors, whether by way of ripostes or full-scale adaptations. The second chapter attends to Barker's oppositional treatment of history and myth. The second part, which is composed of four chapters, concentrates on the aesthetic aspects of Barker's work, and points out that these, too, give clear signs of his oppositional tendency and innovativeness. The first chapter demonstrates the poetic elements of Barker's language, and the second shows that Barker is endowed with a visual imagination that enables him to construct memorable visual images on stage in illustration of dramatic conflict in his plays. The third chapter is addressed to Barker's style of characterization, and argues that Barker's tendency to define characters by their contradictions has recently given way to a more complex method, the simultaneous existence of contradictory qualities within the same psychic. The last chapter investigates the relationship Barker sets between verbal and visual language in his plays, and concludes that violence is an important term of this relationship. The third part comprises three chapters, the first of which deals with Barker's characterisation of 'non-subversive' artists, and concludes that this characterization negatively explains Barker's position at the time of writing the play concerned. The second chapter analyses Barker's portrayal of 'subversive' artists and finds out that explicit connection exists between Barker and his artists. The third chapter is a continuation of the second, but it mainly focuses upon Barker's recent propensity to use the plays themselves as vehicles to reiterate his aesthetic views.