s g n i K d n a s e g a b Of Cab Journal of King’s English Literary Society
ISSUE 7
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about my future. Part of the reason for this passivity may have been the low financial risk of my studies; another was the relative anonymity of going to a large public institution, where no one was checking up on me to make sure that I knew what I was doing, apart from my father, who suggested management consulting. (He’s since come around.) I chose to teach English as a foreign language, and after a couple of years of that I had become nostalgic enough for the literature classroom to want to go back.
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It’s a cliché to say that one became an academic by accident, and it masks what it’s really like: there is a whole lot of graft and disappointment, of three- and five-year plans, of projects that take a decade (or more!) from inception to completion. But when I think back on how I got started, it still feels like a happy accident, made possible by an excellent public university system and a lot of outstanding teachers and colleagues. I did my BA in English, straight from school, at the University of California at Berkeley, which at the time offered an extremely good value education to in-state students like me: the English department was the top-ranked in the United States, and I paid less than a fifth of the cost of tuition at Harvard. (I also had part-time paid work and lived frugally, and at one point my parents were genuinely concerned that I wasn’t building up enough debt, and that therefore I must be doing something illegal.) Fees have tripled since I studied there in the late ‘90s, despite staunch opposition from UC staff and students. At Berkeley, you didn’t need to de-
clare a major until your third year. So before I decided on English, I also studied (I am not making this up) Astronomy, Cognitive Science, Latin American Politics, and Land Management. I also took language courses (French, Hebrew, and Spanish) and creative writing, and within the English department I was always drawn to courses on literature from ethnic minority or non-European contexts: African-American Literature, Chicano Prison Literature, Arabic Literature in Translation. I also had a range of important experiences outside the classroom: I travelled to Israel/Palestine and Mexico, got arrested as part of a large student protest against cuts to the Ethnic Studies department, and volunteered as a services coordinator at a free medical clinic. Most of the other students I knew had similarly diverse academic and extracurricular interests. I didn’t know it then, but all of this would feed into my professional life. When I finished my BA, I had no plans. I had never visited the careers office, never thought seriously about what I wanted to do with my degree, never spoken to a tutor or advisor
I was accepted for a part-funded place at the University of Cambridge, to work on a PhD on Palestinian writing in the English Faculty. My choice of topic came out of my trip to Israel/Palestine and my studies of Arabic literature in translation and Hebrew, which had fed into my final-year dissertation. At my supervisor’s suggestion, I soon added Israeli texts to the thesis. I started the work in 2003, in the same month that Edward Said died, and at the height of the al-Aqsa intifada. I was lucky enough to be at an institution that had a Middle East studies faculty, where I could study Arabic and Hebrew, and to have a supervisor (the marvellous Priyamvada Gopal) who supported the project and shielded me from some of the politically and disciplinarily tricky responses to what I was doing. It was not a project that had a clear correlation with existing fields of study: at the time, postcolonial or world literature syllabi in English departments did not normally include literature from the Middle East, and as an English PhD with some Arabic and Hebrew I was not going to be able to teach Arabic or Hebrew literature in a Middle East studies programme. But I was enjoying the work and I felt like it had some value, which was good, because I didn’t know if I would get a job at the end of it. I spent a good part of the fourth
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part of the expansion of the Comparative Literature programme. I’m based 50-50 in English and Comparative Literature, which suits me perfectly: I get to read and teach texts from around the world as a matter of course, while still having a base in my formative discipline. Although my experience might seem very specific, I think there are some general points to take from it. At a time where the funding culture is moving toward collaborative and interdisciplinary work, a project that’s situated between fields can have its advantages, as long as you can make a good case for why scholars in relevant fields should have an interest in what you do. I also think there are significant benefits to multilingual work, even in languages that you’re not completely fluent in: it can give your work a geographical range and local depth that working in English alone can’t always do. Above all, as your resources allow, I recommend trips to other places, electives in other disciplines, and talks outside your research interests: you never know what happy accidents might present themselves. ª
I spent five fantastic years at York, and in September I took up the opportunity to move to King’s to be
Dr Anna Bernard Lecturer in English Literature King’s College London
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year of my PhD putting in applications for teaching and research positions in the US and UK, when I really should have been focusing on finishing my thesis, but I had a sense of needing to cast my net widely. I was reasonably successful in getting interviews, but it wasn’t until the day after I passed my viva, in June 2007, that I was offered my first job in the Department of English and Related Literature at the University of York. I like to think that I did better at interview because I was buoyed by the previous day’s achievement, but having the PhD in hand probably also played a part. I also benefited from the political climate. Since I had begun my PhD, the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had made the Middle East much more visible in British and American public culture, and in literary publishing. The field of postcolonial studies had shifted focus accordingly, and more scholars had begun to work on texts that were from or about Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern/North African contexts. My interests, which had previously seemed marginal, had become almost mainstream.
Dear Literature
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Welcome to our Valentine issue of Of Cabbages and Kings. For lovers alone, we present to you the creative pulse at the heart of King’s. The cultural scene beckons bright, with upcoming student productions of The Tragedy of Dr Faustus, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Heidi Chronicles. As rehearsals get under way, we bring you a sneak peek of some of King’s students’ collaborative eff orts, in Dr Faustus and further afield in The Wellcome trust’s Mortal: a Drama. The King’s Cultural Chal-
ri o it ed
lovers,
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lenge is on, the Medievalist Exhibition at the Maughan Library is now open in the Weston Room, and the dreamthinkspeak production In the Beginning was the End is beating beneath our very feet. We are happy to announce this competition’s winner of two tickets to see Feast at the Young Vic goes to Hannah Elsy. Let the New Year be full of new hopes, new loves and new scenes. Happy Valentine’s Day! Love from Louise, Bethan and Geri ª
review In the republic of Happiness (at The Royal Court Theatre)
Thanks to the generosity of Of Cabbages and Kings, I was able to go and see The Royal Court’s Christmas offering, which as expected stood in stark contrast to the yuletide festivities. Martin Crimp’s brutal satire on modern life In the Republic of Happiness will divide opinions, not necessarily evenly. It is not an easy watch but as the play developed, I questioned whether Crimp’s intention was to make a play that would be comfortable to watch. It’s acerbic, perverse, brave and above all unapologetic. As one of the many English Literature students who pride themselves on being able to see into the depths of any play, novel or piece of poetry, I hadn’t the foggiest idea what was going on. There was lots of swearing, singing, confessions concerning ‘manipulative and abusive cats’. It was without a doubt the most bizarre 105 minutes of my life. However, it was an experience I would definitely have again, and I sway between pitying and envying those who haven’t had the same one. The play begins with a traditional family Christmas scene. We are presented with three generations including grandparents, parents and two sisters. This scene is soon disrupted by a witty and unrelenting dialogue that includes Grandma openly admitting she buys Grandfather pornograph-
ic magazines, which he justifies by declaring ‘even an imperfect erection can be useful’. The scene takes an even more absurd turn when the leering wordsmith that is Uncle Bob comes into the picture, to explain to the family before he leaves to start a new and happier life why his wife Madeleine hates them all. The characters of Uncle Bob and Madeleine (played by Paul Ready and Michelle Terry respectively) are the least likable characters and so are responsible for the more disturbing tone the play sets. The Uncle is hinted at having fathered the child of his younger niece, and having slept with the older one, which does not appear to upset anyone at all. Welcome to Crimp’s Christmas! If there is one thing that this play cannot be faulted on it is the very slick and impressive staging. In one such scene, the stage slides away from the traditional family scene into a talk show-like row of chairs, and a cult-inspired earnestness from the actors. It is honest, harsh and at times very funny, as the actors then proceed to recite in an almost mechanical fashion the ‘Five Essential Freedoms of the Individual’. These take numerous forms and include the right to: write the script to your own life, to have a trauma, look good, life forever and to spread your legs. The final act involves my two least favourite characters; Uncle Bob and Madeleine, with her bullying him into happi-
ness. I would have replaced it with the grandparents who almost certainly steel the show (Anna CalderMarshall and Peter Wight). It’s an oddly flat end to a play that, if nothing else, is ruthless and dynamic. The script is an uneasy one that includes a number of almost childishly placed swearwords and unsettling subject matter. Each act is punctuated by a number of satirical songs that vary greatly in quality. The second act contained at least five of these musical offerings and as I looked through my notes, scrawled in large capital letters the words, is ‘PLEASE STOP THE SINGING!!!’ However, the unpredictability of this play has the effect of making the audience sit-up and pay attention, or else risk getting even more lost. Many will not have found the play gratifying, but its comments on our narcissistic and materialistic society feel surprisingly fresh. It’s a play that deserves to be seen regardless of its difficulty, and pondered over long afterwards. ª Elena Gillies, 1st year English Language & Literature
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university I would have selected. I think King’s is very exciting intellectually; there is an enormous buzz of activity all around campus. Being a linguist, the multiculturalism of King’s interests me, as does the international scope of the student population. We are very centrally located, and have access to all that London offers, and this attracts all sorts of high-level academics. Most of all, I like being on the Strand because it is so close to the river which is great. OCAK: As a linguist who translates French and German as well, how important do you think it is to be bilingual? Was it hard for you to become bilingual? HD: Very important. In an ideal world, I think everyone should speak two languages, and most people in the world do. I learnt at school from a young age, and was taught very well so it was quite easy. As a translator and a teacher of these languages, I am also giving a seminar in the Spanish department about my translations of Lorca.
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Of Cabbages and Kings: How did you come to King’s and what sets it apart from the rest of the London Universities? Hilary Davies: Being one of the two Royal Literary Fund Fellow placed at King’s, we are here on a temporary basis, as professional writers to aid post-graduates with their thesis writing, offering advice on how to write, how to construct an argument, and answer any question that they may have with academic writing. The Royal Literary Fund places you at a university, and there are 60 writers all over the country serving universities in the same position as me in any one-year. Although I did not have a choice in my location, I was very pleased with King’s, which would have been the
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Interview with Hilary Davies, Fellow of the Royal Literary Fund
OCAK: What are your main preoccupations of your poems? HD: I use history and geography enormously, and location features very heavily in my work. I am currently working on a poem based in Germany. My published work ‘Imperium’ is set in the Napoleonic Wars, and there are others set in prehistory, at the time when the animals came. Linking history and poetry has been a long-standing tradition, and I use it to say quite large things about the human condition, of which my own experiences cannot suffice. I like a big canvas to say things and use historical events to create a backdrop and a wider frame of reference for me. OCAK: Is there any advice you would give budding young writers? HD: Read a great deal. Read poetry, and not just modern poetry. Read as far back you can go, in as many traditions as you can, in as many kinds of writers and writing, so you become very knowledgeable in every kind of tradition. Writing takes you out of your tradition, no matter what it is, and you need to know what
that tradition was.
child or a grandchild of that.
OCAK: Describe your poetry writing process. HD: I like embarking on big projects, and in the case of ‘Imperium’ I did my research on Nelson and the Napoleonic Wars, which had interested me since I was young. I went the places of battles, and read on navy and shipbuilding which was quite technical., basically England’s maritime traditions. After immersing yourself in the time period, you start imagining yourself as part of that piece of history.
OCAK: What books purely within English literature be a must read for your children, or your wards? HD: That is a very interesting question. I would have her read the bible, although some people debate whether it is fiction or non-fiction. She would also need to be familiar with Shakespeare, my favourite Hamlet, or King Lear. Also, if there were one English novel I had to recommend to a younger person, it would be Jane Eyre. A poet would be T.S. Eliot, perhaps ‘The Wasteland’ or ‘Four Quartets’. Lastly, if one were to talk about 20th century novelists, for me it would be William Golding and any of his novels.
OCAK: Every poetic movement of history has taken some direction in which poets have united in both theme and style, for example that Romantics focusing on both the lyric form and the preoccupation with nature and the internal self. As a poet part of modern movement, what direction do you think poetry is taking now? HD: It would be difficult to compare the romantics with modern poetry, but perhaps a similar movement would be the ecological movement, which is a bit more sophisticated than anti-industrialization. The same worry of man’s effect on the environment mirror the anti-industrialization thought of the 18th and 19th century, and there is a direct link to the ecological movement of now, existing as a
OCAK: Two words to describe the scope of your poetry. HD: Lyrical and narrative, so I suppose that would make it lyrical narratives. ª Interview by Ka-mern Tan, 2nd year English Language & Literature
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Mortal: A Drama
Death lurks near the jostling mass of London Euston station. The Wellcome Trust’s exhibition ‘Death: A Self- Portrait’ leaves no (grave)stone unturned in exploring the visual representation of Death throughout the ages: from contemporary wire sculptures of the Grim Reaper to Medieval tapestries of peasants falling into eternal damnation. A company of young actors, myself included, are using this morbid ephemera as inspira-
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tion for devising a piece of theatre that brings this exhibition, ironically, ‘to life’. ‘Mortal: A Drama’ explores the devastating, gruesome and sometimes humorous aspects of death. Our fascination with death, as humans, has always had a theatrical quality to it: from the spectator sport of medieval witchburnings to the final speeches of Shakespearian tragedies to the cult following behind the ‘Bunny Suicides’ merchandise today. This entire play has been devised entirely within the company, from discussions about personal experiences and our ‘gut’ reactions to stimulus material. Director Elizabeth Lynch comments on the challenge of broaching such a sensitive subject matter with a group of relative strangers, commenting that ‘people come to different things at different stages of their lives, (someone) may have been bereaved at an early age and therefore have a more profound understanding of death than a 35 year old’. Although this is not a verbatim piece, the text we are working with has been taken straight from words spoken by members of the company, or directly from the written comments of visitors to the exhibition, and have simply been transposed into the mouths of different actors. This method, according to Lynch, is the best way of generating words that have genuine emotional authenticity, without there being any pressure on the actor to re- live their individual experiences or ‘bare their soul’ on stage.
own deaths. If you died tomorrow, what are the things you wish you’d never said or done? What would your fantasy funeral be like? What objects would your family keep as mementos of you?
‘Life’ is intrinsic to a good performance, because actors need to feed off the energies of the audience and their fellow performers. The physical vibrancy of this piece and the youth of the company mean that this play could be seen to be more of a celebration of life than a dialogue with death. The only thing we know for certain about this life is that we get one shot at it. So let’s make the most of it! Mortal, A Drama will be performing at the Wellcome Collection on Thursday 14th February at 6.30pm, Sunday 17th February at 1.00pm and Thursday 21st February at 7.30pm. Tickets are free and can be reserved by contacting the Wellcome Collection Box Office. ª
‘Mortal: A Drama’ is certainly not a traditional ‘aesthetically pleasing’ piece of theatre. It is jarring and surreal to watch, with periods of destructive dancing juxtaposed with re- imagined reality television that judges the dramatic value of contestants’ deaths. Lynch is firm that she didn’t want to create a piece of theatre that just allows the audience to sit back and ‘enjoy’, but to stimulate in the individual an ‘intellectual, emotional and sensual’ response.
Hannah Elsy, 1st year English Language & Literature
As a company, our aim is to get the audience to think about the implications of their
Death: A Self-Portrait, exhibition until 24 February 2013 at the Wellcome Collection
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creati
ve writ ing
Small Town Girl She watched as the rescue workers carefully dredged up her limp body from the bottom of the lakebed. Her skin’s waxy sheen, her rag-like hair and her arms and limb’s contorted position made her look like a broken doll that some kid had played with too roughly and then carelessly tossed aside. Her next-door neighbour, who had once called her a good-fornothing juvenile delinquent for walking across his lawn, was trying desperately to resuscitate her corpse despite the rescue workers repeatedly trying to convince him that she was already dead. Dead, her whole life reduced to one word, dead. Her parents, unamicably separated for ten yours now, but never divorced, because divorce was a sin and they were good respectable people, huddled together in a corner, their eyes glazing over as they accepted condolences that they didn’t really want to hear. The whole town had gathered by the lake, some coming so that they can shake their heads and mourn the fact that such a tragedy could take place in their town and others coming because they genuinely cared. Not that anything they said or did mattered anymore, nothing but a burial could get rid of the sweet, putrid stench that emitted from her rotting corpse. She sighed and sat down, someone was going to pay for this. ª Jo Lou, study abroad student English Language & Literature
The Ghost of Love I watch the morning sun fade in to the evening moon. Sitting. Patient. Waiting. My torn copy of enduring love rests upon my lap as I listen to the familiar rumble of rush hour traffic. Through her soft rose lips she whispered, ‘Wait for me here, I don’t know when, but I promise I’ll come back’. I told her ‘As surely as I exist, I love you. I will wait forever.’ Her long golden curls kissed me as she turned her back and walked away. That day I waited, and waited. She never came. So here I sit, waiting, forever. ª Lauren Lindsey, 2nd year English Language & Communications
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y r et po A Modern Romance Although the girl I’ve liked from afar Is only a click away
Fraudulent grins or pensive Oblivious moments
Tucked behind a backlit screen
For me to browse through at my leisure
Luck It’s not just the fact that someone blew out my candle. A childish flame quivering inside the delicate iris, sleeping. That could leap out and engulf the room, Like thousand blackbirds spiralling down, chanting the waves of fire in bloom Spreading its wings. But in its rest, in the candle’s white cradle; like a child, still not seen his reflexion in the mirror, You blew it out, leaving its dust over all things. ª Charles He, 1st year English Language & Literature
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I still feel, though I know that face and Herself at-a-glance, this distance Like hollow lecture theatre seats
Between two pulchritudinous people Parts us.
Although the girl I’ve seen from afar That I envisage in climactic
Filmic moments, romantic final embraces, Gives me some secret eyes,
I see we’re not what Hardy wrote about; And that not everything that’s twain Eventually converges. ª Joe Prestwich, 2nd year German
Saint F in Barre’s Cathedral Once upon a time, in the Story of Isaac, (the stained glass version) His eyes were peas coiled in boot laces; A fact. Now, the lad’s looped pink face remained, Though features worn away by light From a high window, an uninterrupted stream, That had survived the renaming of civil war As independence.
Rehabilitation as erasure, Is neither theft, nor fraud, because Isaac’s pointed nose And eyes like green beans, Were never drawn from life. ª Rena Minegishi, 2nd year English Language & Literature
It ’s Raining in My Heart by Paul Verlaine
It’s raining softly on the city. (Arthur Rimbaud) It is raining in my heart, As it rains on the city, What is this melancholy Eating away at my heart? Just that softest sound of rain As on streets and roofs it taps! For a heart bent-double in pain Just that singing of the rain! It’s raining without reason Inside this poor, sickly heart. What is this? There’s no treason, This grieving without reason. This is the worst pain that bites And without quite knowing why, Without love and without spite, Cuts at my heart like a knife! ª Translated by Serafina Vick, 2nd year French and Hispanic Studies
poetr y
Does that make a fool of Kilmainham? Where they inflated the roof, a gaseous Palmhouse, for exotic specimens From irksome corners of the empire. Puffed up, That curvilinear iron lung, so that the inmates Could breathe sunlight and ventilate their souls. Inhale, exfoliate, Before we realise they’re heroes.
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How to Sell your Soul
Or, the Tragedy of Dr Faustus George Steiner, in his Notes towards a Re-definition of Culture from 1971, wrote that “Much has been said of man’s bewilderment and solitude after the disappearance of Heaven from active belief. We know of the neutral emptiness of the skies and of the terrors it has brought. But it may be that the loss of Hell is the more severe dislocation. It may be that the mutation of Hell into metaphor left a formidable gap in the co-ordinates of location, of psychological recognition in the Western mind. The absence of the familiar damned opened a vortex which the modern totalitarian state filled. To have neither Heaven nor Hell is to be intolerably deprived and alone in a world gone flat. Of the two, Hell proved the easier to re-create.” A little earlier, in Polen, in an industrial town about sixty miles from Auschwitz, Jerzy Grotowski’s Theatre Laboratory produced Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus. Within this specific cultural and historical context, Faustus had, since his appearance in 1592, become a spokesperson for the cruelty of God as experienced in the 20th century. As Grotowski wrote in his program to the performance: ‘Faustus is a saint and his saintliness shows itself as an absolute desire for pure truth. If the saint is to become one with his sainthood, he must rebel against God, Creator of the world, because the laws of the world are traps contradicting morality and truth’. And suddenly, we are now occupying the beginning of the 21st century. Postmodernism introduced the liberating term relativism, which fits a globalized, multidimensional world, where in theory, everybody can become the person they want to be, by mixing up all the cultural signs available. But is it possible to still claim the existence of one, universal moral truth? Or is the definition of truth something every individual must determine for herself? Why is Faustus selling her self-consciousness, when every whim can be accommodated through the Internet? Last year, a Swedish documentary produced by TV4’s Cold Facts, revealed the working conditions of H&M’s factories in Cambodia. 70 work
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hours a week give you 50 pounds. People work until they exasperate. Our consumerism has created an ethical blur, where in the end, we buy that top, because – what can I as an individual do? Therefore, our biggest sin today is that of Indifference. This is the driving factor behind our current social state, and is therefore incorporated in the play. It is the group mentality that makes it possible to suppress concerns, and avoid confrontation, with all the issues that affect other people, but has yet to affect me, like the melting of poles, and exploitation of workers. Because why should I care, when everybody else chooses to look away?
Using this as our theoretical backdrop, we have begun rehearsing The Tragedy of Dr Faustus. The play is to a large extent written from Marlowe’s particular historical time, when religion and politics were closely united. Secularization put them apart, which means that the qualities Marlowe gave to the Church in the play, is now what keeps politics going: create a view of the world, and try to get as many as possible to live their lives according to it. The notion of heaven and hell is the ideology operating within the play. Their representatives panic when one of their subjects try to break away from the jarring images, the empty learning and the accepted truths they have profits from proclaiming. Faustus refuses to go along with it, but with considerable personal costs. Hell, as no infernal physicality, but a psychological devilry in a world without limits, has become an inseparable product of the secular confusion of mass consumerism. The Doctor- not him, but Her- is in our play plurally manifested, not the voice, but the voices, deriving from an anxiety connected to the uncertain existence of universal truths. ª The Tragedy of Dr Faustus 7.30pm 16th and 17th March Elise Dybvig & Liza Weber, 2nd year English Language & Literature
Medievalist Visions Medievalist Visions is an exhibition that explores how the art and literature of the European Middle Ages, as well as medieval events, ideas and people, have been represented in post-medieval Britain. It has been curated by Josh Davies, Sarah Salih and Beatrice Wilford of the English Department and Catherine Sambrook, the Foyle Special Collections Librarian. ª
Feast
until 23 February, The Young Vic
In the Beginning was the End
until 30 March, Somerset House In the Beginning was the End is the first production housed by Somerset House, in conjunction with the King’s Cultural Institute. The divine, death, and the mystery of life are explored in the previously hidden hollows underneath King’s, as the production acts as a walking tour through its depths. Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci, and blending live performance with film and art, an intimate and unique experience is promised. ª
Feast, a collaborative production from five culturally diverse writers, explores the story ofthree sisters tragically separated and scattered across the continents. Their story is entwined with the delights of African dancing and music, as we explore the heritage of West African culture. With £10 tickets on offer especially for students, there is no excuse to miss this exciting piece of drama. ª
Of Cabbages and Kings
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30 January - 22 May, Weston Room, Maughan Library
Editors Louise Wang Geri Ross Bethan Eynon Design Geri Ross Cover Artwork Sam Cleal Publicity Jake Mardell Contact & submissions: cabbages.submissions@gmail.com