Shaping and Reshaping the Caribbean

The current drive in Caribbean literary studies stresses similarities and points of convergence between the various islands of the archipelago and their authors, the fundamental aim of which is to move closer to an all-encompassing theory of Caribbeanness. Martin Munro challenges this movement, and...

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Главный автор: Munro, Martin
Формат: Online
Язык:английский
Опубликовано: Modern Humanities Research Association 2025
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Online-ссылка:ONIX_20251014T154955_9781839546907_13
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author Munro, Martin
author_browse Munro, Martin
author_facet Munro, Martin
author_sort Munro, Martin
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description The current drive in Caribbean literary studies stresses similarities and points of convergence between the various islands of the archipelago and their authors, the fundamental aim of which is to move closer to an all-encompassing theory of Caribbeanness. Martin Munro challenges this movement, and through a study of the work of Aimé Césaire and René Depestre, proposes an alternative vision of the present and future of Caribbean literature. The main areas of inquiry are: how these two Caribbean writers construct their sense of themselves; how they relate to the Caribbean and to the wider world; and how they have been influenced by the historical and cultural particularities of their respective islands. Aimé Césaire's sense of self and of the Caribbean is essentially shaped around the circuit triangulaire, the model of Africa/Europe/Caribbean interdependencies, ultimately inherited from the time of the slave trade. Munro shows how Césaire views the Caribbean as a deeply traumatic, insubstantial space; how he looks to Africa for his lost sense of self; and how Europe is seen at once as the malevolent colonial power and also the home of poetry and learning. René Depestre's Caribbean 'shape' is quite different: Africa is relatively absent in Depestre's work; Europe is not presented as a threat; and Depestre, unlike Césaire, sees in the Caribbean an energy and a creativity brought about by the historical fusion of disparate cultures. An important factor in 'shaping' Depestre's model of Caribbeanness is his long exile from Haiti, and Depestre's experience of exile is analysed in detail. The combination of broad contextualization, diverse theoretical approaches, and close analysis of these important writers' work, produces a strong argument against attempts to view and read writing from the Caribbean as one literature. Difference and diversity, it is argued, predominate as Caribbean writing embraces the new century, and the whole notion of Caribbeanness undergoes further processes of highly creative splintering and reshaping.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1672312025-10-16T13:15:46Z Shaping and Reshaping the Caribbean Munro, Martin Caribbean literature Caribbean Caribbeanness thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DC Poetry thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1K The Americas::1KJ Caribbean islands thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3MP 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999 The current drive in Caribbean literary studies stresses similarities and points of convergence between the various islands of the archipelago and their authors, the fundamental aim of which is to move closer to an all-encompassing theory of Caribbeanness. Martin Munro challenges this movement, and through a study of the work of Aimé Césaire and René Depestre, proposes an alternative vision of the present and future of Caribbean literature. The main areas of inquiry are: how these two Caribbean writers construct their sense of themselves; how they relate to the Caribbean and to the wider world; and how they have been influenced by the historical and cultural particularities of their respective islands. Aimé Césaire's sense of self and of the Caribbean is essentially shaped around the circuit triangulaire, the model of Africa/Europe/Caribbean interdependencies, ultimately inherited from the time of the slave trade. Munro shows how Césaire views the Caribbean as a deeply traumatic, insubstantial space; how he looks to Africa for his lost sense of self; and how Europe is seen at once as the malevolent colonial power and also the home of poetry and learning. René Depestre's Caribbean 'shape' is quite different: Africa is relatively absent in Depestre's work; Europe is not presented as a threat; and Depestre, unlike Césaire, sees in the Caribbean an energy and a creativity brought about by the historical fusion of disparate cultures. An important factor in 'shaping' Depestre's model of Caribbeanness is his long exile from Haiti, and Depestre's experience of exile is analysed in detail. The combination of broad contextualization, diverse theoretical approaches, and close analysis of these important writers' work, produces a strong argument against attempts to view and read writing from the Caribbean as one literature. Difference and diversity, it is argued, predominate as Caribbean writing embraces the new century, and the whole notion of Caribbeanness undergoes further processes of highly creative splintering and reshaping. 2025-10-16T13:15:45Z 2025-10-16T13:15:45Z 2025-10-14T13:53:09Z 2000 book ONIX_20251014T154955_9781839546907_13 0957-0322 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/106498 9781839546907 1902653297 https://admin.directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/167231 eng MHRA Texts and Dissertations open access image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/106498/1/9781839546907.pdf Modern Humanities Research Association Texts and Translations 10.59860/td.b6c2c6a 10.59860/td.b6c2c6a 263272ae-2045-451b-ac91-b0037a2fd63a 9781839546907 1902653297 Texts and Translations 275 Cambridge open access
spellingShingle Caribbean literature
Caribbean
Caribbeanness
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DC Poetry
thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1K The Americas::1KJ Caribbean islands
thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3MP 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999
Munro, Martin
Shaping and Reshaping the Caribbean
title Shaping and Reshaping the Caribbean
title_full Shaping and Reshaping the Caribbean
title_fullStr Shaping and Reshaping the Caribbean
title_full_unstemmed Shaping and Reshaping the Caribbean
title_short Shaping and Reshaping the Caribbean
title_sort shaping and reshaping the caribbean
topic Caribbean literature
Caribbean
Caribbeanness
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DC Poetry
thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1K The Americas::1KJ Caribbean islands
thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3MP 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999
topic_facet Caribbean literature
Caribbean
Caribbeanness
thema EDItEUR::D Biography, Literature and Literary studies::DC Poetry
thema EDItEUR::1 Place qualifiers::1K The Americas::1KJ Caribbean islands
thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3MP 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999
url ONIX_20251014T154955_9781839546907_13
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