Oral eyeness: Scripted orature in twentieth century Irish literature and performance (James Joyce, William Butler Yeats, Brendan Behan, Patrick McCabe)

This study examines Irish literary texts composed by their authors to be read aloud, a mode of writing I call scripted orature. Texts of scripted orature often create unconventional linguistic structures in their attempt to fuse orality with the written word. Due to their close relationship with speech, these texts are intimately associated with particular groups of people at particular times in history, and are, therefore, uniquely positioned to represent images of cultural identity. By situating scripted orature between the dual frames of artistic innovation and cultural representation, this study has two complementary aims: first, it strives to articulate the nature and appearance of the linguistic structures that constitute scripted orature (artistic innovation); and second, it explores the relationship between specific forms of scripted orature and the images of Irish identity they perform (cultural representation). In order to discuss a range of cultural identities, this study considers several diverse sites of scripted orature: William Butler Yeats's early poetry and plays (1890s), James Joyce's "Sirens" episode of Ulysses (1919), Lady Gregory's play Spreading the News (1904), Brendan Behan's plays An Giall (1958) and The Hostage (1958), Patrick McCabe's novel The Butcher Boy (1994), and Bloomsday (1954--present), an annual celebration of Joyce's fiction in which adaptation and performance figure prominently. This study argues that texts of scripted orature have contributed significantly to the contestation, negotiation, and creation of Irish cultural identities. This study also presents a history of twentieth century Ireland with a focus on issues of colonization, decolonization, and postcolonial economic and social change as read through specific texts and performances.