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The literary impact of the Haitian Revolution
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Kaisary, Philip James (2008) The literary impact of the Haitian Revolution. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
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Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b2248420~S15
Abstract
The Haitian Revolution (1 791-1804) reshaped the debates about slavery and
freedom in Europe, accelerated the abolitionist movement, precipitated
rebellions in neighbouring territories, and intensified both repression and antislavery
sentiment. Its long-term effects remain visible in the many
representations, recuperations, and invocations of the Revolution as an
exemplar of black agency. At the same time, the violence of the conflict led to
portrayals of Haiti as unregenerate and primitive, a prey to 'voodoo' and
lawlessness. Hence the recuperation of Haiti's political and cultural history, in
which the establishment of the first postcolonial nation must be accounted for
as a momentous event despite its ostensible failure, contests the tradition of
imperial denigration. The thesis addresses how the Haitian Revolution followed
by the establishment of a Black Republic, provided inspiration for writers,
artists and intellectuals throughout the Atlantic Diaspora in diverse cultural and
intellectual locations from the 1920s onwards. If public knowledge about
Haitian history has for some time now been limited in Europe and North
America, the Revolution has been a potent factor in black memory and it
remains an inspiration to Carib beans, Africans, African Americans, and Latin
Americans, as well as to radical intellectuals and artists worldwide. The thesis
studies the writings generated by the Revolution in the works of Aime Cesaire,
C. L. R. James, Rene Depestre, Langston Hughes, Edouard Glissant, Alejo
Carpentier, Derek Walcott, and Madison Smartt Bell, spanning French, English,
and Spanish, and including poetry, drama, history, biography, fiction, and
opera; while in the visual arts it considers the paintings of Kimathi Donkor and
commemorative postage stamps. My discussion addresses both critical
understandings and fictional reinventions of the Revolution's achievement and
tragic reversals. I examine the ideologies informing the analyses, and the
aesthetics of the imaginative writings, where a political stance in some cases
served to promote innovation and experimental style and in others was a
constraint.
Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
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Subjects: | F History United States, Canada, Latin America > F1201 Latin America (General) P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) |
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Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Haiti -- History -- Revolution, 1791-1804, Haiti -- In literature, Revolutions in literature, Postcolonialism in literature | ||||
Official Date: | March 2008 | ||||
Dates: |
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Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
Theses Department: | Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies | ||||
Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Parry, Benita | ||||
Extent: | 344 leaves | ||||
Language: | eng |
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