Re-membering the Black Atlantic : on the poetics and politics of literary memory / Lars Eckstein.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Eckstein, Lars.

Series:

Cross/cultures ; 84.

Cross/cultures, 0924-1426 ; 84

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English literature--Black authors--History and criticism.

English literature.

Phillips, Caryl--Criticism and interpretation.

Phillips, Caryl.

Dabydeen, David--Criticism and interpretation.

Dabydeen, David.

Morrison, Toni, 1931-2019--Criticism and interpretation.

Morrison, Toni.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (308 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam ; New York : Rodopi, 2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The Atlantic slave trade continues to haunt the cultural memories of Africa, Europe and the Americas. There is a prevailing desire to forget: While victims of the African diaspora tried to flee the sites of trauma, enlightened Westerners preferred to be oblivious to the discomforting complicity between their enlightenment and chattel slavery. Recently, however, fiction writers have ventured to 're-member' the Black Atlantic. This book is concerned with how literature performs as memory. It sets out to chart systematically the ways in which literature and memory intersect, and offers readings of three seminal Black Atlantic novels. Each reading illustrates a particular poetic strategy of accessing the past and presents a distinct political outlook on memory. Novelists may choose to write back to texts, images or music: Caryl Phillips's Cambridge brings together numerous fragments of slave narratives, travelogues and histories to shape a brilliant montage of long-forgotten texts. David Dabydeen's A Harlot's Progress approaches slavery through the gateway of paintings by William Hogarth, Sir Joshua Reynolds and J.M.W. Turner. Toni Morrison's Beloved , finally, is steeped in black music, from spirituals and blues to the art of John Coltrane. Beyond differences in poetic strategy, moreover, the novels paradigmatically reveal distinct ideologies: their politics of memory variously promote an encompassing transcultural sense of responsibility, an aestheticist 'creative amnesia', and the need to preserve a collective 'black' identity.

Contents:

Illustrations

Introduction

PART I

LITERARY MEMORY

1 Towards a Poetics of Mnemonic Strategy in Narrative Texts

Testimonies: recourse to mental mnemonic resources

Interlude: the testimony of Olaudah Equiano

Palimpsests: recourse to manifest mnemonic resources

PART II

MNEMONIC FICTIONS OF THE BLACK ATLANTIC

2 Caryl Phillips, Cambridge

The poetics of memory: the art of montage

The politics of memory: empowering culture

3 David Dabydeen, A Harlot's Progress

The poetics of memory: the art of ekphrasis

The politics of memory: empowering the individual

4 Toni Morrison, Beloved

The poetics of memory: the art of musicalization

The politics of memory: empowering the collective

Conclusion

Appendix: Source Passages Adapted in Cambridge

Bibliography

Acknowledgements.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Based on the author's dissertation (doctoral)--Universitat Tubingen, 2003, under title: Der 'Black Atlantic' im Gedachtnis der Literatur.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [273]-289).

ISBN:

9789401202763

9401202761

9781423789116

1423789113

OCLC:

714567376

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789401202763 DOI