The current drive in Caribbean literary studies stresses similarities and points of convergence between the various islands of the archipelago and their authors, the fundamental aim of which is to move closer to an all-encompassing theory of Caribbeanness. Martin Munro challenges this movement, and through a study of the work of Aimé Césaire and René Depestre, proposes an alternative vision of the present and future of Caribbean literature. The main areas of inquiry are: how these two Caribbean writers construct their sense of themselves; how they relate to the Caribbean and to the wider world; and how they have been influenced by the historical and cultural particularities of their respective islands.
Aimé Césaire's sense of self and of the Caribbean is essentially shaped around the circuit triangulaire, the model of Africa/Europe/Caribbean interdependencies, ultimately inherited from the time of the slave trade. Munro shows how Césaire views the Caribbean as a deeply traumatic, insubstantial space; how he looks to Africa for his lost sense of self; and how Europe is seen at once as the malevolent colonial power and also the home of poetry and learning.
René Depestre's Caribbean 'shape' is quite different: Africa is relatively absent in Depestre's work; Europe is not presented as a threat; and Depestre, unlike Césaire, sees in the Caribbean an energy and a creativity brought about by the historical fusion of disparate cultures. An important factor in 'shaping' Depestre's model of Caribbeanness is his long exile from Haiti, and Depestre's experience of exile is analysed in detail.
The combination of broad contextualization, diverse theoretical approaches, and close analysis of these important writers' work, produces a strong argument against attempts to view and read writing from the Caribbean as one literature. Difference and diversity, it is argued, predominate as Caribbean writing embraces the new century, and the whole notion of Caribbeanness undergoes further processes of highly creative splintering and reshaping.
This book, originally published in paperback in 2000 under the ISBN 978-1-902653-29-7, was made Open Access in 2025 as part of the MHRA Revivals programme.
Contents:
i-viii, 1-267
Shaping and Reshaping the Caribbean: The Work of Aimé Césaire and René Depestre Martin Munro Complete volume as single PDF
As a new century of Caribbean studies begins, there is one overriding compulsion among the major theorists. This concerns the quest for a Pan-Caribbean approach to questions of culture, nation and race.
In Césaire's work it is possible to derive a sense of a divided Caribbean self, unfixed, uncertain, torn between different continents, belonging to none but the influence of each being felt simultaneously. The Antillean feels a dizzying, disorientating sense of his place in the world. And yet, despite the incessant, unpredictable movement, there is also a paradoxical feeling of being stuck, unable to move; of being fixed in instability.
Given his deep sense of the Caribbean as a barren, uncreative space, it is scarcely surprising that Césaire should have looked first to the continent of origin as a source of ethnic identity and cultural depth. What is perhaps surprising is that his enthusiasm for Africanity has endured even as new generations of Caribbean authors have progressively looked inwards and identified a creative potential born out of the chaotic meeting of Amerindian, European and African cultures in the New World.
Europe exists as an omnipresence in Césaire's work; it is the fundamentally negative point in the circuit triangulaire, the source of all the alienation, dislocation and indeterminacy which, as we have seen, characterize the presentation of the other two points. It is the cause of Césaire's 'problème', the root of his dilemma, and as such, is somehow ineradicable, an inescapable presence which penetrates every layer of the poetry and theatre.
The previous three chapters were mainly concerned with identifying the various representations and influences in Césaire's work, and relating them to one or other point in the circuit triangulaire. This has not always been possible, as each point does not exist in isolation, but is part of a complex set of interdependencies. This and the next chapter examine Césaire's use of language and rhythms and consider how the three points become (con)fused, enmeshed, and overlap each other so that it is increasingly difficult to isolate them. In looking at length at Césaire's use of language and rhythms, I will discover how these become areas of tension, conflict, and uncertainty between the islands, Africa, and Europe. Beginning with the question of language, I will analyse Césaire's linguistic starting point, and the classical post/colonial problem of 'finding a voice'.
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Chapter 5: Rhythms, Repetitions, and the circuit triangulaire Martin Munro doi:10.59860/td.c4895bd
Chapter 4 showed how the workings of the circuit triangulaire become profoundly confused in Césaire's use of language. This sort of study is necessarily intricate, and the search for definite answers is often frustrated. In this chapter, I will carry out a similar analysis of Césaire's rhythms, as this is another area which has generated much debate, with many conflicting opinions, all of which come from one or other point of the circuit triangulaire.
Having established the circuit triangulaire shape of Césaire's references, I will now apply the same model to Depestre's work. How does the triangular shape fit; how does he represent Africa, Europe and the Caribbean? How does his concept of space and place determine his sense of self, and what shape emerges? How does his Haitianity affect this? Importantly, how do Depestre's many exiles reshape the Caribbean self and reformulate the definition of Caribbean writing? Can the idea of the oneness of 'Caribbean literature' survive this close analysis?
Césaire's conception of Europe is as the essentially aggressive point, the colonizer, an omnipresent, inescapable presence. In this chapter, I will consider how Depestre's images of Europe compare with Césaire's, how he approaches European literature and thought, and how he ultimately reshapes the circuit triangulaire by substituting the United States for Europe.
The Haiti/Caribbean point in Depestre's work is an immensely complex, divergent, fluid entity. This complexity is born out of the historical and cultural contradictions which characterize the islands, and Haiti in particular: at once a place of 'historylessness' and of glorious revolution; of enslavement and liberty; of pride and shame; of cultural aridity and fecundity; at once the comforting mother and also the despotic 'Papa'; at once the here and now and also the there and then. Depestre's long exile from Haiti only complicates the relationship.
Subsequent Martinican authors have called the circuit triangulaire into question, and have attempted a certain reshaping of Césaire's model. The debate lying behind these shapings and reshapings concerns national, racial, cultural, even hemispheric self-definition, and how to construct this in a (non-)place such as Martinique, and the Caribbean in general, whose schismatic and traumatic historical reality has radically problematized the question of belonging and identity.
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Bibliography entry:
Munro, Martin, Shaping and Reshaping the Caribbean: The Work of Aimé Césaire and René Depestre, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 52 (MHRA, 2000)
First footnote reference:35 Martin Munro, Shaping and Reshaping the Caribbean: The Work of Aimé Césaire and René Depestre, MHRA Texts and Dissertations, 52 (MHRA, 2000), p. 21.
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