Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The Gaelic Tradition up to 1750
- 2 Scottish Women Writers C.1560-C.1650
- 3 Old Singing Women and the Canons of Scottish Balladry and Song
- 4 Women and Song 1750-1850
- 5 Selves and Others: Non-fiction Writing in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
- 6 Burns’s Sister
- 7 ‘Kept some steps behind him’: Women in Scotland 1780-1920
- 8 Some Early Travellers
- 9 From Here to Alterity: The Geography of Femininity in the Poetry of Joanna Baillie
- 10 Some Women of the Nineteenth-century Scottish Theatre: Joanna Baillie, Frances Wright and Helen MacGregor
- 11 The Other Great Unknowns: Women Fiction Writers of the Early Nineteenth Century
- 12 Rediscovering Scottish Women’s Fiction in the Nineteenth Century
- 13 Elizabeth Grant
- 14 Viragos of the Periodical Press: Constance Gordon'Cumming, Charlotte Dempster, Margaret Oliphant, Christian Isohel Johnstone
- 15 Jane Welsh Carlyle’s Private Writing Career
- 16 Beyond ‘The Empire of the Gentle Heart’: Scottish Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century
- 17 What a Voice! Women, Repertoire and Loss in the Singing Tradition
- 18 Margaret Oliphant
- 19 Caught Between Worlds: The Fiction of Jane and Mary Findlater
- 20 Scottish Women Writers Abroad: The Canadian Experience
- 21 Women and Nation
- 22 Annie S. Swan and O. Douglas: Legacies of the Kailyard
- 23 Tales of Her Own Countries: Violet Jacob
- 24 Fictions of Development 1920-1970
- 25 Marion Angus and the Boundaries of Self
- 26 Catherine Carswell: Qpen the Door!
- 27 Willa Muir: Crossing the Genres
- 28 ‘To know Being': Substance and Spirit in the Work of Nan Shepherd
- 29 Twentieth-century Poetry I: Rachel Annand Taylor to Veronica Forrest-Thomson
- 30 More Than Merely Ourselves: Naomi Mitchison
- 31 The Modem Historical Tradition
- 32 Jane Duncan: The Homecoming of Imagination
- 33 Jessie Kesson
- 34 Scottish Women Dramatists Since 1945
- 35 The Remarkable Fictions of Muriel Spark
- 36 Vision and Space in Elspeth Davie's Fiction
- 37 Designer Kailyard
- 38 Twentieth-century Poetry II: The Last Twenty-five Years
- 39 Contemporary Fiction I: Tradition and Continuity
- 40 Contemporary Fiction II: Seven Writers in Scotland
- 41 Contemporary Fiction III: The Anglo-Scots
- 42 The Mirror and the Vamp: Liz Lochhead
- 43 Women's Writing in Scottish Gaelic Since 1750
- Select Bibliographies of Scottish Women Writers
- Notes on Contributors
- Index
35 - The Remarkable Fictions of Muriel Spark
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2020
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Introduction
- 1 The Gaelic Tradition up to 1750
- 2 Scottish Women Writers C.1560-C.1650
- 3 Old Singing Women and the Canons of Scottish Balladry and Song
- 4 Women and Song 1750-1850
- 5 Selves and Others: Non-fiction Writing in the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
- 6 Burns’s Sister
- 7 ‘Kept some steps behind him’: Women in Scotland 1780-1920
- 8 Some Early Travellers
- 9 From Here to Alterity: The Geography of Femininity in the Poetry of Joanna Baillie
- 10 Some Women of the Nineteenth-century Scottish Theatre: Joanna Baillie, Frances Wright and Helen MacGregor
- 11 The Other Great Unknowns: Women Fiction Writers of the Early Nineteenth Century
- 12 Rediscovering Scottish Women’s Fiction in the Nineteenth Century
- 13 Elizabeth Grant
- 14 Viragos of the Periodical Press: Constance Gordon'Cumming, Charlotte Dempster, Margaret Oliphant, Christian Isohel Johnstone
- 15 Jane Welsh Carlyle’s Private Writing Career
- 16 Beyond ‘The Empire of the Gentle Heart’: Scottish Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century
- 17 What a Voice! Women, Repertoire and Loss in the Singing Tradition
- 18 Margaret Oliphant
- 19 Caught Between Worlds: The Fiction of Jane and Mary Findlater
- 20 Scottish Women Writers Abroad: The Canadian Experience
- 21 Women and Nation
- 22 Annie S. Swan and O. Douglas: Legacies of the Kailyard
- 23 Tales of Her Own Countries: Violet Jacob
- 24 Fictions of Development 1920-1970
- 25 Marion Angus and the Boundaries of Self
- 26 Catherine Carswell: Qpen the Door!
- 27 Willa Muir: Crossing the Genres
- 28 ‘To know Being': Substance and Spirit in the Work of Nan Shepherd
- 29 Twentieth-century Poetry I: Rachel Annand Taylor to Veronica Forrest-Thomson
- 30 More Than Merely Ourselves: Naomi Mitchison
- 31 The Modem Historical Tradition
- 32 Jane Duncan: The Homecoming of Imagination
- 33 Jessie Kesson
- 34 Scottish Women Dramatists Since 1945
- 35 The Remarkable Fictions of Muriel Spark
- 36 Vision and Space in Elspeth Davie's Fiction
- 37 Designer Kailyard
- 38 Twentieth-century Poetry II: The Last Twenty-five Years
- 39 Contemporary Fiction I: Tradition and Continuity
- 40 Contemporary Fiction II: Seven Writers in Scotland
- 41 Contemporary Fiction III: The Anglo-Scots
- 42 The Mirror and the Vamp: Liz Lochhead
- 43 Women's Writing in Scottish Gaelic Since 1750
- Select Bibliographies of Scottish Women Writers
- Notes on Contributors
- Index
Summary
In her most fantastic piece of fiction ‘The Playhouse Called Remarkable’, Muriel Spark offers a definition of art. The story recounts the genesis of artistic sensibility on Earth shortly after the Flood when Moon Biglow and five companions arrive from the Moon and establish a theatre to present ‘The Changing Drama of the Moon’. This is a performance which varies its words and music but always narrates the true adventures of a singing, acrobatic Moongirl who sets out to investigate the mysterious singing voice on a Moonmountain. The girl is trapped by the voice which spins her around throughout the night and mocks her in song while she responds with a defiant contrapuntal harmony. During the day, however, the girl is totally incapacitated as a ray from the Sun strikes the mountain and stabs her through the throat. Through the repetition of the daily cycle, she learns that the voice's inspiration is the Sunray and she communicates this knowledge, in song, to the Moonpeople at the foot of the mountain instructing them to take her story, as a drama, to the inhabitants of Earth. The ensuing ‘art mission’ of Moon Biglow and his colleagues locates itself in Hampstead and is at first a huge success, the Moonmen's theatre being hailed by the natives as ‘The Remarkable’. Opposition comes, however, from local cultural leader Johnnie Heath who claims that the visitors are interfering with the ‘native purity’ of Hampstead and that the playhouse cannot be registered with the council as ‘known as the Remarkable’ since ‘remarkable’ is an adjective and not a noun. Through Johnnie's harassment, the people gradually return to the indigenous ‘turn turn ya” chant and one night, in the stupor of this mantra, they sacrifice Moon's girlfriend Dolores. Disheartened, the missionaries, with the exception of Moon, leave Earth. A legacy is left behind however, as Moon explains:
The absence of the Changing Drama of the Moon began to be felt. The sense of loss led to a tremendous movement of the human spirit. The race of the artist appeared on earth … whenever the turn turn ya movement gets afoot, and the monotony and horror start taking hold of people, the artists rise up and proclaim the virtue of the remarkable things that are missing from the earth.
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- A History of Scottish Women's Writing , pp. 514 - 525Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2020