Transpopular Spaces: Gypsy Imageries in the Work of Van Morrison

Abstract

The work of Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison has gone relatively unnoticed by critics despite the numerous social, literary and artistic elements included in his songs. Among them is the representation of the figure of the Gypsy as a model of action for generations of listeners who were concerned about countercultural dynamics, as well as alternative life models to those that were legitimized by the middle class of the time. The objective of this study is to analyze the romanticized component that is presented in Morrison's work around his conceptualization of gypsyism, as well as to observe how these elements generate, firstly, a deontologizing function in the Gypsy figure, and then a resignification of the spaces in transit occupied by the imagination(s) of this community as a nomadic people.To carry out this analysis, several songs from the first albums of the Northern Irish author will be examined, and we will explain the function of representing the Gypsy in the countercultural spatial environment of their epistemology.