AFRICA IN THE CARIBBEAN IMAGINATION: A STUDY OF THE POETRY OF EDWARD KAMAU BRATHWAITE, NICOLAS BATISTE GUILLEN AND DEREK ALTON WALCOTT
AFRICA IN THE CARIBBEAN IMAGINATION: A STUDY OF THE POETRY OF EDWARD KAMAU BRATHWAITE, NICOLAS BATISTE GUILLEN AND DEREK ALTON WALCOTT
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Date
2005-05
Authors
AKUSO, EZEKIEL SOLOMON
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Abstract
This dissertation examines the depiction of Africa, as a reality
and as an idea, in the creative works of the Caribbean writer, using
multiple theoretical approaches such as Post colonialism, Formalism,
New Criticism and the Representation theory. The dissertation argues
that the image of Africa in the European and Western discourse was
prejudicial and preposterous due to its presentation of Africa as
primal and savage, without history, as permanent and fixed and thus
imperious to modification and change. Over the years, Caribbean
writers have with varying degrees of success, challenged this
dominant regime of encoding or representing Africa by re-inscribing a
range of positive images of Africans and Black people, Black life and
culture. This dissertation further postulates that the works of Edward
Kamau Brathwaite, Nicolas Batiste Guillen and Derek Alton Walcott
reveal a shift of emphasis from mere documentation of African
survivors in Caribbean writing to an identification and foregrounding
of an authentic Afro- Caribbean tradition and aesthetics. The
contributions, of these West Indian poets therefore lie in the
repositioning of Africa, not as a contained identity or exclusive entity
but as a conglomeration of several things all of which have been
significantly influenced by such negative experiences as slave trade,
colonialism and imperialism. These have reshaped the African
experience, identity and character as evident in the poetry of the
three selected major Caribbean poets.
The discourse in the dissertation spans five chapters. Chapter
one is the introduction which explores the concepts and the context of
the study.
Chapter two analyses Brathwaite’s poetry. It focuses on how
Brathwaite’s textuality is anchored on personality formation or the reinscription
of the self. Chapter three explores Guillen’s Man Making
Words with special emphasis on the African image and Black identity.
Multiculturalism and cultural schizophrenia is examined in
chapter four. Here it is argued that Walcott in his poetry, gives due
recognition to how the combination of European and African
heritages have influenced identity formation in the Caribbean. His art
generally reveals the hybrid nature of the West Indian’s culture and
the schizophrenic situation that pervades the Caribbean society.
Chapter five, the concluding chapter, brings together the central
arguments and findings of the study. On the whole it is established
that both Africa and the Caribbean are signified as habitats or home
in Caribbean Poetry: the former, ancestral, which gives spiritual and
x
psychological strength; the latter, real, providing the physical
environment for realizing dreams, aspirations and forging new
identities.
Description
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE POST GRADUATE
SCHOOL, AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY, ZARIA FOR THE
FULFILLMENT OF THE AWARD OF THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF
PHILOSOPHY (LITERATURE)
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH &DRAMA
FACULTY OF ARTS
AHMADU BELLO UNIVERSITY
ZARIA-NIGERIA
MAY, 2005
Keywords
AFRICA,, CARIBBEAN,, IMAGINATION,, POETRY,, EDWARD KAMAU,, BRATHWAITE,, NICOLAS BATISTE,, GUILLEN,, DEREK ALTON,, WALCOTT