A Study of djuna barnes in terms of avant-garde drama with special emphasis on the antiphon

ABSTRACTThere are not very many truly bright women in the world. There are not very many trulybright men in the world, either. One among millions gives us the light bulb and we allbenefit. We can illuminate the dark we dread. After all these years there has still been but oneShakespeare. Miss Djuna Barnes was also a singularity. Herself the eternal, aggravatingperfectionist, she watched the twentieth century , born full of optimism , slip deeper anddeeper into its disillusionment. With her perverse families, unromantic sexual relations , andrefusal of tragic conclusion or redemption of characters, Barnes appears more radical, moreundomesticated and more innovative than other women dramatists of her time.The term avant-garde, which literally means `advance-guard? can be interpreted in arevolutionary sense, that is against the overpowering state, and thus the avant-garde artistsare alienated from the established order. In this respect, Djuna Barnes can be considered anavant-garde artist, being herself an `antinomian? against the established order of the society,with her isolation in the self, with her expansion of boundaries of accepted gender roles, andfocusing primarily on pushing the frontiers of aesthetic experience within the philosophy of`art for art?s sake? with an uncompromising view to the extend of even having `no audience atall? in her plays.The aim of this thesis is to show how Djuna Barnes interprets the twentieth century ofdisillusionment, despair and large scale violence through her experimental drama.This study of Miss Barnes with special emphasis on her verse drama The Antiphon will stressher consistently naturalistic vision, her explorations with form and style. Barnes allusion toShakespeare?s The Tempest serve to redefine the function of tragedy in a patriarchy and sheclaims that for women dramatists. She claims to recover the story of the `absent?, `theviolated? or the `underprivileged? by breaking every possible taboo.Surely The Antiphon is Barnes? own `antiphon? to the rest of the world, its tragedy a responseto the tragicomedy of the modern world.vi