Taste of Honey: Shelagh Delaney, Morrissey and the Impossible Feedback

Karolina Kosińska

Abstract

Morrissey, a British musician, in the 1980s the leader and vocalist of the legendary group The Smiths, one of the most spectacular figures of pop culture, a remarkable erudite, saturated his work with references to literature or cinema. In the lyrics of The Smiths one can find plenty of quotes from movies or literature, their record sleeves often included photographs of actors, writers and playwrights. Morrissey was fascinated by Shelagh Delaney, a British playwright who in 1958 made a debut, at the age of 19, with A Taste of Honey, a play that was incredibly bold, both in the formal aspect and in regard to traditional British mores. Thus Delaney became a part of the new wave of the British culture, and contributed to the revolution in British engaged theatre, but also caused much controversy, especially in her home town of Salford. Kosińska’s article is an attempt at an- swering the question of how the fascination with the creative and ideological attitude of Delaney manifested itself in the work of Morrissey and how these two characters have become part of one cultural universe.