Dancing literature

Abstract

This thesis seeks to illustrate the different manifestations of dance in two main literary genres: poetry and drama. It looks at the relationship between dance and literature during the Modem era. Due to the ephemerality of dance, language struggles to encapsulate it; hence dance exists in writing a manner of haunting, where it is simultaneously absent and present. This thesis will explore the metaphors of dance, as well as the choreography of dance. In relation to this, the first chapter, Dancing (in) Poetry, will examine the works of two Modernist poets, William Carlos Williams and T. S. Eliot, while the second chapter, Dance in the Theatre, will look at Dancing in Lughnasa by Brian Friel, and several of Samuel Beckett's plays.