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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'West Indian Folk literature'
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1
Rampaul, Giselle A. "The carnivalesque in West Indian literature." Thesis, University of Reading, 2003. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.406623.
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Marshall, Rosalie Dempsy. "On being West Indian in post-war metropolitan France : perspectives from French West Indian literature." Thesis, University of Birmingham, 2012. http://etheses.bham.ac.uk//id/eprint/3334/.
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Most research into contemporary French West Indian literature focuses on writing that stresses the significance of the plantation and urban cultures of the islands in the early to mid-twentieth century or, more recently, on the desire of some writers to explore broader trans-national influences or environments. Despite the prominence of migration in post-war French West Indian history, however, less has been said about the engagement of French West Indian literature with migration to metropolitan France. Although commentators have recently begun to discuss the work of a handful of writers in connection with migration to the métropole, this thesis offers a full-length analysis of the issue, bringing writers, texts and literary and cultural theories together with the cultural and sociological context of migration to metropolitan France. I comment on a variety of well-known authors and texts, while also presenting writers and writing that have frequently been neglected in other studies. I also consider the reasons for what I believe to be both the slow development of a literature of migration, as well as the low profile of this issue within Francophone literary studies. Part One, ‘French and West Indian: Historical and Sociological Contexts’, considers the broad context of migration, reflecting on how that context impacts on the West Indians and their descendants in the métropole. Part Two, ‘Theory and the French West Indian Diaspora’, looks at colonisation, postcolonial criticism, and the current scholarship devoted to them, as these concern the issues of migration and identity in sociological and literary terms. Part Three, ‘Patterns of Discourse: Reflections of the Métropole’, takes recurrent themes that have appeared in the works of a variety of less well-known writers, including writers of West Indian origin born in the métropole. In Part Four, ‘Siting the Métropole’, I examine three successful yet very different writers and consider their contributions to the literature of migration, in the light of the reflections made and the patterns uncovered earlier in this thesis. My conclusion unites the themes of inclusion and exclusion that this subject brings to the fore, and suggests potential literary and scholarly developments for the future.
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Bailach, Teresa. "West Indian theatre : Derek Walcott and the infinite rehearsal." Thesis, University of Warwick, 2005. http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/103796/.
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This thesis analyses three of Derek Walcott's plays in the light of Wilson Harris's ideas of 'infinite rehearsal' and 'unfinished genesis.' The purpose of this thesis is to explore Walcott's definition of the artist and his relation to society in the context of decolonisation. Throughout the thesis the struggle against nihilism appears as a constant underlying goal that both writers relate to the essence of the Caribbean, as a symbol of survival and regenesis. The first part of the thesis offers a deep analysis of Harrisian concepts of literature and its connection to reality, and an exploration of the links between Harris's ideas and the theatrical genre in the context of Walcott's early theatrical endeavours. The second part of the thesis presents a reading of Ti-Jean and His Brothers, Dream on Monkey Mountain, and Pantomime, that highlights the development of Walcott's notions of the artist in relation to his society and to the world. The unresolved conflicts of the pre-1970 period give way to a coherent and grounded set of principles that offer an example of one Caribbean artist's attempt at restoring the pieces of his fragmented identity. Reading Derek Walcott's plays in a Harrisian context throws new light into his theatrical production, and brings to the surface elements that had remained hidden and overlooked. The use of Wilson Harris as a theoretical background responds to two main aspects of these writers' work. On the one hand, the scope of Wilson Harris's philosophical world draws links with manifold cultures and literary traditions. More importantly, Wilson Harris proposes a fluid environment in which Walcott's divided self can find a suitable malleable ground.
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Rodriques, Janelle Alicia. "Narratives of Obeah in twentieth-century Anglophone West Indian literature." Thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10443/3463.
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This thesis examines representations of Obeah, the name given to a range of African-inspired, syncretic Caribbean religious practices, in novels and short stories written by authors born in the former British West Indies. Ranging from the late 1920s to the late1980s, these texts’ plots all systematically engage with these practices in their narrations of West Indian nation and national identity. My study focuses on how each of these texts narrates Obeah vis-à-vis the wider concerns of modernity, cultural identity, nationhood and colonial alienation, and realigns the discussion of Obeah aesthetics with debates around what has been designated ‘the folk’ in Caribbean literary criticism. Through detailed, comparative readings of the works of several authors, this study not only recovers the neglected trope of Obeah in West Indian fiction, but also argues Obeah’s integrity to the elaboration of a uniquely regional literary and cultural aesthetic. Chapter One examines the use of Obeah in barrack-yard fiction, and its implications for the myth of a unified, homogenous nation. Chapter Two explores the representation of Obeah in short stories of the late 1930s into the 1950s, and their concerns with Obeah’s place in the new nations they imagine. Chapter Three reads Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) and Claude McKay’s Banana Bottom (1934) as critiques of the primitive/modern aesthetic and cultural binary; I argue that Obeah is narrated, in these novels, from the threshold of these extremes. Chapter Four examines three novels written around Independence, featuring single male protagonists whose negotiations of Obeah are analogous for national negotiations of selfhood. Chapter Five focuses on Erna Brodber’s Myal (1988), which manipulates ‘African’ spirituality in its ‘quarrel with history.’ These novels all, in addressing Obeah, reimagine these practices as integral to, while also challenging, the idea of West Indian nationhood and identity.
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Courtman, Sandra Elaine. "'Lost years' : West Indian women writing and publishing in Britain, c.1960 to 1979." Thesis, University of Bristol, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/1983/7752595b-71d7-42ef-b25f-4bd8d8c6dd37.
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Miller, Andrew Kei. "Jamaica to the world : a study of Jamaican (and West Indian) epistolary practices." Thesis, University of Glasgow, 2012. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3597/.
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The Caribbean islands have been distinguished by mass migratory patterns and diasporic communities that have moved into and out of the region; as a consequence, the genre of the letter has been an important one to the culture and has provided a template for many creative works. This dissertation is the first major study on West Indian epistolary practices: personal letters, emails, verse epistles, epistolary novels, letters to editors, etc. It focuses on a contemporary period – from the 1930s to the present, and on examples that have come out of Jamaica. The dissertation offers both close-readings on a range of epistolary texts and theoretical frameworks in which to consider them and some of the ways in which Caribbean people have been addressing themselves to each other, and to the wider world. My first chapter looks at the non-fictional letters of Sir Alexander Bustamante and Sir Vidia Naipaul. It reflects on the ways in which the public personas of these two men had been created and manipulated through their public and private letters. My second chapter tries to expand a critical project which has been satisfied to simply place contemporary epistolary fiction within an eighteenth century genealogy. I propose another conversation which understands recent examples of West Indian epistolary fiction within their contemporary cultures. My third chapter looks at examples of Jamaican verse epistles and considers how three poets – Lorna Goodison, James Berry and Louise Bennett – have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to create an epistolary voice that is both literary and oral. My fourth chapter looks at the popular Jamaican newspaper advice column, Dear Pastor. It considers the ways in which evangelical Christianity has impacted on the construction of a West Indian epistolary voice and consequently the shape of a West Indian public sphere. My final chapter considers how technology has changed epistolography; specifically how the email, Facebook messages, and tweets have both transformed and preserved the letter. I end with a presentation of a personal corpus of emails titled The Cold Onion Chronicles with some reflections on remediation of epistolary forms.
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Thompson, Eva M. "Mary Prince, and contexts for the History of Mary Prince, A West Indian slave, related by herself /." Connect to resource, 1998. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view.cgi?acc%5Fnum=osu1260901805.
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Hodge, Audre. "Home is where the heart is : patterns of displacement in West Indian and Black American literature." Honors in the Major Thesis, University of Central Florida, 1997. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETH/id/172.
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This item is only available in print in the UCF Libraries. If this is your Honors Thesis, you can help us make it available online for use by researchers around the world by following the instructions on the distribution consent form at http://library.ucf.edu/Systems/DigitalInitiatives/DigitalCollections/InternetDistributionConsentAgreementForm.pdf You may also contact the project coordinator, Kerri Bottorff, at kerri.bottorff@ucf.edu for more information.Bachelors
Arts and Sciences
English Literature
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Simpson, Hyacinth Mavernie. "Orality and the short story Jamaica and the West Indies /." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 2000. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ59155.pdf.
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Reiss, Nicole S. (Nicole Susanne). "Universal fairy tales and folktales : a cross-cultural analysis of the animal suitor motif in the Grimm's fairy tales and in the North American Indian folktales." Thesis, McGill University, 1996. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=24103.
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The primary objective of this M. A. thesis is to correct some false assumptions found in both older and more recent secondary literature on North American Indian narratives. Many folklorists base their folktale criteria on terms of cultural differences instead of similarities which results in an ethnocentric point of view that holds the Grimms' Kinder- und Hausmarchen as a standard against which all other folktale collections falls short. If we want to strive for a world view that will embrace all types of literature, while respecting the individuality of each culture, then we must focus on the essential similarities among world literatures and not the differences. The purpose of using another culture as a comparison, such as that of the North American Indians, is to question the ethnocentric definitions of folktales and fairy tales which have often been too rigid. Perhaps those cultural values exhibited by North American Indian folktales could prove to be beneficial to the world's multi-cultural society, in that these values could enrich and rejuvenate some Western values, such as respect for animals and the environment. These values may offer solutions to urgent contemporary world problems. Through a comparative analysis of the animal suitor motif found in the Grimms' fairy tales and North American Indian folktales, I hope to call attention to the stark cross-cultural similarities in universal folklore and to bring to light the multiplicity of cultural values which are deeply rooted in fairy tales and folklores around the world.
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Williams, Carla Denise. "When the pen becomes a sword: Race and class consciousness in the literature of the West Indian writers Jacques Roumain, Etienne Lero, Gilbert Gratian." DigitalCommons@Robert W. Woodruff Library, Atlanta University Center, 1993. http://digitalcommons.auctr.edu/dissertations/511.
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This thesis considers the influence of three West Indian writers who contributed to the development of Negritude as a literary, social and political phenomenon. The author shows that the racial awareness central to the Negritude movement was strongly affected by the experiences in Haiti and Martinique in particular. The thesis is comprised of three chapters and a conclusion. The first examines the awakening of racial consciousness in Paris in the 1930s and ‘40s, placing those developments in literary and historical perspective. This chapter also serves as an introduction to the milieu of West Indian and black American writers who were aggressively active in deriving a literary response to racial oppression. The second and third chapters analyze the roles of individual writers. The second chapter probes the writings of Jacques Roumain. He made an impression with his Marxist analysis of the Haitian situation, pushed for an “indigenous” Haitian literature, and developed the peasant novel. By using excerpts from essays, poems, and his novel, Gouverneurs de la Rosee, the writer details the influence of this Haitian author on Negritude writers. The third chapter considers two lesser—studied writers, the Martinicans Etienne Lero and Gilbert Gratiant. Gratiant embraced the mixed cultural heritage of Martinique, while Lero fought for an African outlook in initiating Legitime Defense, and through other contributions. An exploration of a small sampling of their work will help to clarify the context of color and caste in Martinique. The conclusion summarizes the authors’ social critique of French civilization and shows that the experiences of the West Indian authors discussed in the thesis influenced the principal leaders of Negritude--Leopold Sedar Senghor, Leon Damas and Aime Cesaire--and that this can be seen in the conceptions the Negritude movement embraced.
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Gillespie, Sandra Walton. "Maternal Shadows and Colonial Ghosts in Jamaica Kincaid's Annie John." [Johnson City, Tenn. : East Tennessee State University], 2001. http://etd-submit.etsu.edu/etd/theses/available/etd-0716101-172936/restricted/gillespies0731.pdf.
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Teodoro, Lourdes. "Modernisme brésilien et négritude antillaise : Mário de Andrade et Aimé Césaire /." Paris ; Montréal (Québec) : l'Harmattan, 1999. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb376738958.
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Tyson, Elizabeth P. "Annie Proulx's Wyoming: Subversive Storytelling from the Bunchgrass Edge of the World." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2014. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/467.
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Annie Proulx’s three Wyoming short story collections, Close Range, Bad Dirt, and Fine Just the Way It Is, tell regional stories that push against the myths surrounding the American West. Elements of Naturalism in her work reverse the paradigm of man’s dominance over the frontier. The cyclical nature of time in her stories shows the unfulfilling nature of nostalgia. She uses folk storytelling techniques to take an insider’s perspective and to utilize the subversive nature of dark humor.
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PEREGO, MARTINA. "Il romanzo di formazione caraibico in inglese: una risposta all'istruzione coloniale." Doctoral thesis, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10280/78939.
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Il presente elaborato si propone di esplorare la tradizione del romanzo di formazione caraibico considerando il genere del romanzo di formazione, le sue caratteristiche, la sua storia, e individuando le peculiarità che il genere ha sviluppato all'interno della tradizione post-coloniale, soprattutto nel contesto caraibico di lingua inglese. Il primo capitolo stabilisce cosa si intenda con “romanzo di formazione caraibico” e introduce i dodici romanzi selezionati per questo studio. La tesi quindi procede identificando quattro argomenti principali, o macro temi, a ciascuno dei quali è dedicato un capitolo, e confrontando il modo in cui questi vengono sviluppati nei diversi romanzi. I temi sono: la scuola e l’istruzione, la cultura e la storia, la politica, la partenza. La tesi si chiude con una breve riflessione sul tema del ritorno.The present study aims to explore the Caribbean Bildungsroman tradition by considering the Bildungsroman genre, its features, and history, and by pointing out the peculiarities that the genre developed within the postcolonial tradition and specifically in the anglophone Caribbean context. The first chapter establishes what is meant by “Caribbean Bildungsroman” and introduces the twelve novels selected for this study. The study then proceeds by identifying four main topics, or macro themes, each developed in a separate chapter, and by comparing the way such themes are dealt with in each of the novels. The themes are: school and education, culture and history, politics, departure. The study closes on a brief reflection on the possibility of return.
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PEREGO, MARTINA. "Il romanzo di formazione caraibico in inglese: una risposta all'istruzione coloniale." Doctoral thesis, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2020. http://hdl.handle.net/10280/78939.
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Il presente elaborato si propone di esplorare la tradizione del romanzo di formazione caraibico considerando il genere del romanzo di formazione, le sue caratteristiche, la sua storia, e individuando le peculiarità che il genere ha sviluppato all'interno della tradizione post-coloniale, soprattutto nel contesto caraibico di lingua inglese. Il primo capitolo stabilisce cosa si intenda con “romanzo di formazione caraibico” e introduce i dodici romanzi selezionati per questo studio. La tesi quindi procede identificando quattro argomenti principali, o macro temi, a ciascuno dei quali è dedicato un capitolo, e confrontando il modo in cui questi vengono sviluppati nei diversi romanzi. I temi sono: la scuola e l’istruzione, la cultura e la storia, la politica, la partenza. La tesi si chiude con una breve riflessione sul tema del ritorno.The present study aims to explore the Caribbean Bildungsroman tradition by considering the Bildungsroman genre, its features, and history, and by pointing out the peculiarities that the genre developed within the postcolonial tradition and specifically in the anglophone Caribbean context. The first chapter establishes what is meant by “Caribbean Bildungsroman” and introduces the twelve novels selected for this study. The study then proceeds by identifying four main topics, or macro themes, each developed in a separate chapter, and by comparing the way such themes are dealt with in each of the novels. The themes are: school and education, culture and history, politics, departure. The study closes on a brief reflection on the possibility of return.
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Kaschula, Russell H. "Imbongi and griot: toward a comparative analysis of oral poetics in Southern and West Africa." 1999. http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59379.
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This article takes up the challenge of comparative research in Africa by analysing and comparing the oral art of West African griots and Southern African iimbongi or oral poets. Similarities and differences between these performers and their respective societies are highlighted through the use of an ethnographic methodology. A distinction is drawn between the more traditional performers such as Thiam Anchou and D.L.P. Yali-Manisi, and the more modern performers such as M’Bana Diop, Bongani Sitole and Zolani Mkiva. The rich use of genealogy and history in the more traditional performances is highlighted. In comparing the work of the more contemporary, urban poets such as M’bana Diop of Senegal and Zolani Mkiva from Southern Africa, similarities are found in their performances on post-independence leaders such as Senghor and Mandela. Political pressures which have been brought to bear on the performer are also discussed. This article explores the continuity between the past and the present in relation to aspects such as the following: how performers gain recognition, their continued survival, their relationship with politics and religion, the orality- literacy debate, and the stylistic techniques used by these performers. Wherever possible, examples of performers and their work are provided.
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Guyot, Adrien. "Monstruosité et identités littéraires une étude sur les littératures antillaise et québécoise /." 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/10048/809.
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Thesis (M.A.)--University of Alberta, 2009.Title from pdf file main screen (viewed on Oct. 20, 2009). "A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in French Language, Literatures and Linguistics, Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies. University of Alberta, Fall 2009." Includes bibliographical references.