Amateur Biographies: Attempting to Fill Archival Gaps

• Authors: Eileen Curley

Title variants

PL

Biografie amatorów: Wokół prób wypełniania luk archiwalnych

Abstracts

PL

Biografie dziewiętnastowiecznych artystów-amatorów trudno wpisać w typowy format biografii ze względu na niedostatek informacji o tego rodzaju wykonawcach i ich występach. Z historią sióstr Lawrence wiąże się dodatkowe wyzwanie: jak kontekstualizować efemeryczną sztukę amatorów w ramach biograficznej historii dwóch kobiet, gdy jedna z nich pozostawiła autobiografię, która wprawdzie stanowi próbę realizacji wzorca tradycyjnej biografii, ale – poddana głębszej analizie – jedynie powiększa liczbę niemożliwych do zweryfikowania luk. Dzięki rozpoznaniu i analizie tych luk oraz problemów, jakie z nich wynikają, można wypracować organiczną narrację odzwierciedlającą złożony charakter pracy badawczej i trudności związane z opowiadaniem o życiu osób, które historia mogłaby pominąć. Biografia staje się więc opowieścią o kobietach, których historia została utrwalona w sposób ułomny, platformą do dyskusji o sztuce popularnej, która niełatwo poddaje się archiwizacji, a zarazem narracją na temat historiograficznych i historycznych możliwości, jakie przeszłość uobecnia za sprawą swoich luk.

EN

The biography of nineteenth-century amateur performers defies typical biographical formulae due to the paucity of information available about these performers and their productions. The story of the Lawrence sisters added another layer of challenge: determining how to contextualize an ephemeral art form within the biographical history of two women when one of them left an autobiography that, interestingly, attempts to follow typical biographical structure and yet, upon deeper analysis, only introduces yet more unverifiable knowledge gaps. By acknowledging and analyzing those gaps and the challenges they present, an organic narrative can develop-a narrative which speaks to the complexities of this work and the challenges of telling the lives of those whom history might otherwise neglect. The biography becomes, thus, the story of women whose history is imperfectly recorded and a vehicle for a discussion of a popular art form which does not readily lend itself to being archived, while also providing a narrative of the historiographical and historical possibilities that the past presents through its gaps.

Keywords

PL

występy amatorskie; teatr amatorski; Rita i Alice Lawrence; biografia

EN

amateur theatricals; amateur theatre; Rita and Alice Lawrence; biography

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Sztuki PAN
• Journal: Pamiętnik Teatralny
• Year: 2022
• Volume: 71
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 37-63

Dates

published

2022

Contributors

author

Eileen Curley

• Marist College

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Identifiers

DOI

10.36744/pt.1122

Biblioteka Nauki

29433185