The Haitian revolution in the literary imagination : radical horizons, conservative constraints / Philip Kaisary.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kaisary, Philip, 1978- author.

Series:

New World studies

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Caribbean literature--20th century--History and criticism.

Caribbean literature.

History.

Haiti--History--Revolution, 1791-1804--Influence.

Haiti.

Haiti--History--Revolution, 1791-1804--Literature and the revolution.

Haiti--In literature.

Literature and history.

Physical Description:

xiii, 237 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Charlottesville : University of Virginia Press, [2014]

Summary:

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) reshaped the debates about slavery and freedom throughout the Atlantic world, accelerated the abolitionist movement, precipitated rebellions in neighboring territories, and intensified both repression and antislavery sentiment. The story of the birth of the world's first independent black republic has since held an iconic fascination for a diverse array of writers, artists, and intellectuals throughout the Atlantic diaspora. Examining twentieth-century responses to the Haitian Revolution, Philip Kaisary offers a profound new reading of the representation of the Revolution by radicals and conservatives alike in primary texts that span English, French, and Spanish languages and that include poetry, drama, history, biography, fiction, and opera. In a complementary focus on canonical works by Aimé Césaire, C. L. R. James, Edouard Glissant, and Alejo Carpentier in addition to the work of René Depestre, Langston Hughes, and Madison Smartt Bell, Kaisary argues that the Haitian Revolution generated an enduring cultural and ideological inheritance. He addresses critical understandings and fictional reinventions of the Revolution and thinks through how, and to what effect, authors of major diasporic texts have metamorphosed and appropriated this spectacular corner of black revolutionary history. Book jacket.

Contents:

Radical universalism: the Haitian revolution, Aimé Césaire, and C.L.R. James

Langston Hughes: Harlem and Haiti

Return to négritude: the Haitian revolution and René Depestre's Un arc-en-ciel pour l'occident chrétien

The Haitian revolution and radical visual politics: Jacob Lawrence, Kimathi Donkor, and the cultures of philately

Edouard Glissant's Monsieur Toussaint: conservatism hidden in Relation

Ideological frailty and the marvelous in Alejo Carpentier's El reino de este mundo

The aesthetics of cyclical pessimism: Derek Walcott's Haitian trilogy

Fantasizing the Haitian revolution with Madison Smartt Bell.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780813935461

0813935466

9780813935478

0813935474

OCLC:

853287076