The Haitian Revolution in the Literary Imagination: Radical Horizons, Conservative Constraints

by Philip Kaisary

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813935478
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	02/21/2014
Series:	New World Studies
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Philip Kaisary is Assistant Professor in the School of Law at the University of Warwick.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

Part 1 Radical Recuperations: Universalism and Transformation

1 Radical Universalism: The Haitian Revolution, Aimé Césaire, and C. L. R. James 21

2 Langston Hughes: Harlem and Haiti 37

3 Return to Négritude: The Haitian Revolution and René Depestre's Un arc-en-ciel pour l'occident chrétien 56

4 The Haitian Revolution and Radical Visual Politics: Jacob Lawrence, Kimathi Donkor, and the Cultures of Philately 77

Part 2 Conservative Visions: Pessimism, Seduction, and Fantasy

5 Edouard Glissant's Monsieur Toussaint: Conservatism Hidden in Relation 109

6 Ideological Frailty and the Marvelous in Alejo Carpentier's El reino de este mundo 121

7 The Aesthetics of Cyclical Pessimism: Derek Walcott's Haitian Trilogy 135

8 Fantasizing the Haitian Revolution with Madison Smartt Bell 157

Conclusion 175

Notes 179

Bibliography 203

Index 231

Editorial Reviews

"Compellingly and rigorously argued, this book is a remarkable contribution to Haitian Revolutionary studies. It offers novel, striking, theoretically informed analysis and critique of a pantheon of twentieth-century literary treatments of the Haitian Revolution. Its combination of judicious and insightful readings with penetrating and highly perceptive critical judgments makes it one of the most exciting contributions to the field in recent years. "—Nick Nesbitt, Princeton University, author of Universal Emancipation: The Haitian Revolution and the Radical Enlightenment

From the Publisher

Compellingly and rigorously argued, this book is a remarkable contribution to Haitian Revolutionary studies. It offers novel, striking, theoretically informed analysis and critique of a pantheon of twentieth-century literary treatments of the Haitian Revolution. Its combination of judicious and insightful readings with penetrating and highly perceptive critical judgments makes it one of the most exciting contributions to the field in recent years.

Nick Nesbitt