Just Literature discussion

what do you think about , writing a dissertation about Aimé Césaire's A Tempest as an answer to Shakespeare's The Tempest.

what do you think about , writing a dissertation about Aimé Césaire's A Tempest as an answer to Shakespeare's The Tempest.

Hello Noor,

I think it's a good choice and a 'safe' text to use. By safe, I mean that it was written within the Post-colonial literary framework and it also 'targerts' a text, The Tempest, that has been read by Post-colonial critics as one of the earliest texts dealing with colonialism.

I would be careful about falling into the temptation of reading Shakespeare's play as a 'pro-colonial' text, though. Prospero is by no means, in my opinion, a 'positive character', nor is Caliban a negative one, and the whole theme of illusion is, in my view, a very insightful ante litteram apostrophe to the hypocrisy and receipt of colonialism.

There is of course a difference in how explicit Shakespeare and Cesarie could be. Shakespeare wrote TT under the reign of James I, oddly enough he had shown great courage in writing, then staging Macbeth in front of the court, yet, interestingly, The Tempest appears, certainly to the modern reader, but I suspect less so to the ear of the Eluzabethan audience, more veiled.

Une Tempte, encountered direct opposition from the French authorities, yet the characters and their socio-political identity are much clearer and more highlighted than in the Bard's play.

Maybe the most interesting route of exploration is by looking at how the colonial experience creates, or accentuates, divisions within the colonised; in Une Tempte, the fracture is represented by Caliban's and Ariel's different approaches to the colonist, one revolutionary, he other non-violent. That again, considering the date of the play, 1969, was a rather topical matter.

thanks alot Andriano

thanks alot Andriano

You're welcome.

Andriano I post another topic. hope you help

Ok, no worries; just post...

Adriano, I’ve just read your helpful and concise definition of literary theory compared with literary criticism. How would you define post-colonialism?

LG wrote: "Adriano, I’ve just read your helpful and concise definition of literary theory compared with literary criticism. How would you define post-colonialism?"

Post-colonialism is a literary theory, belonging, as Professor Eagleton suggests, within the 'political theories' family. He actually says 'political criticism', by which I understand critical theories. I sense a bit of disapproval in Prof. Eagleton's categorisation; I don't totally disagree with him on this; Literary Theory in general has been taken over by ideologies, one could think of the last non-ideological big theories as Formalism and Reader-Response Criticism, I do have a partial issue with reading texts merely in the light of their sociological implications. These theories often neglect the most fundamental reading of a text as a work of Art, they often put Aesthetics as subordinated to ideology. They all derive from Marxist Criticism, and I think commit a similar mistake. Having said this, as a theorist, I would welcome if such theories inverted their pursuit and used their significant role in discovering and analysing new, or previously neglected texts to explore alternative Aesthetics. What they have been doing so far is mainly using other Aesthetic theories in a rather random fashion to promote the ideology they start from. Feminist Theory got close to opening the door to a new set of Aesthetic parameters, in particular with Lacan, who suggested the existence of a 'feminine sentence', yet here's the rub: he only suggested it was never able to define it if not with vague terms that are totally useless from a critical perspective.

Theory is necessary for criticism to exist, so, Post-colonial theory is used to criticise texts. In many ways, the critical application of Post-colonial theories has given more insightful results than Feminist theory; the latter has often directe itself towards what one can only describe, unfortunately, as platitudes, since A Room of One's Own was written, very little theoretical advancement has been made; the focus has always been on detailing consequences of men's oppression of women, which I believe are clear to anybody with an iota of intellect, maybe with the exception of The Madwoman in the Attic: Gubar and Gilbert are onto something there, and join Feminist with Post-Colonial theory in many ways. This,, although not a fully theoretical text, opens the way to reading the 'Oriental' from a unified perspective. I think that should be the way forward, especially by looking at gothic texts and the gothic within the realist tradition. My worry is with the direction of purpose that has ensued: if we keep looking for patterns of discrimination to point out flaws in the authors' ideologies, we are carrying out a sociological crusade, rather than exploring and developing Literary Theory.

I think it should be for authors to comment on and represent society, not for critics and theorists. That does not mean that they should not have their own ideologies and political ideas, but what political theories do, in essence, is point out inequalities in society, which, by they way, as a person and a writer, I loathe, but that has led the world of Literary Theory away from its purpose, especially when texts are, as they often have been, evaluated and assessed according to the ideology they present. I'm a convinced anti-Fascist, yet does that make me say that Marinetti's paintings are ugly? No, I will disagree with Marinetti's support of Fascism from beyond my grave if I have to, but as a critic, I have to look at his Art from a merely Aesthetic point of view, and from that point of view, he's a superb painter.