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Philosophy in the West Indian novel / Earl McKenzie.
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- McKenzie, Earl, 1943- author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- West Indian fiction (English)--History and criticism.
- West Indian fiction (English).
- Philosophy in literature.
- Physical Description:
- 1 online resource (165 p.)
- Edition:
- 1st ed.
- Place of Publication:
- Jamaica : University of the West Indies Press, 2009.
- Language Note:
- English
- Summary:
- Earl McKenzie's pioneering philosophical study of the West Indian novel is based on three main assumptions: first, that philosophy is a reflection on the fundamental questions we can ask about ourselves and our world; second, that literature, particularly the novel, is the best method yet devised to provide a 'human face' to these reflections; and third, Caribbean philosophy is at present embedded in other forms of cultural expression, like literature, and these forms need to be excavated to reveal what lies within. McKenzie examines ten novels by George Lamming, Roger Mais, Wilson Harris, V.S. Naipaul, Orlando Patterson, Jean Rhys, Erna Brodber, Lakshmi Persaud, Earl Lovelace and Jamaica Kincaid, each selected to represent differences in geography, chronology, ethnicity and gender. In this cross-section of novels, McKenzie identifies ancestral influences from the philosophies of Europe, Africa and India, and shows how West Indian fiction embodies ideas from several areas of philosophy, including metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of education, social and political philosophy, ethics, feminist philosophy, and philosophy of literature.
- Contents:
- Aims of education: historicism and In the castle of my skin
- The meaning of life and Black lightning
- The inner radiance of the shelf in Palace of the peacock
- Knowledge and human understanding in A house for Mr Biswas
- Existentialism and The children of Sisyphus
- Tragic vision in Wide Sargasso Sea
- African conceptions of a person and Myal
- The law of karma in Sastra
- The moralty of reparations in Salt
- Plato versus Kincaid?: A reading of The autobiography of my mother.
- Notes:
- Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph
- Includes bibliographical references and index.
- Description based on print version record.
- ISBN:
- 1-4416-2031-1
- OCLC:
- 608624587
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