This is an exercise of enormous difficulty.1 Not because of the quantity of material involved (heavily financed directed research would take care of this), but because its success will be limited by the scholar’s aboriginal concept and perception of wholes. Most people in the post-mediaeval world deal almost instinctively with fragments/specializations. The historian, especially, will periodise his material. There will be general periods: precolumbian, slavery etc; there will be century blocks; and more specific dates e.g. 1492–1500; 1838–1844 etc. There will also be limitations on territorial treatment (Henri Bangou, La Guadeloupe: 3 vols., Paris, 1962, 1963; Douglas Hall, Five of the Leewards; Carib. U. Press, Barbados, 1971), or enterprise (L. J. Ragatz, The fall of the planter class: NY 1928; W. Westergaard, The Dutch West India Company: NY 1917; C. H. Haring, The buccaneers in the West Indies in the 17th century: NY 1910)....
Caribbean Man in Space and Time
Kamau Brathwaite (1930—2020) was a distinguished poet, historian, editor, and essayist who taught for years at the University of the West Indies, Mona, and subsequently at New York University. His publications include The Arrivants (1973); Born to Slow Horses (2006), which was awarded the 2006 International Griffin Poetry Prize; and The Lazarus Poems (2017). In 1994 he received the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, in 2015 he was awarded the Poetry Society of America’s Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry, and in 2020 he was the recipient of the NGC Bocas Lit Fest Henry Swanzy Award for Distinguished Service to Caribbean Letters.
Edward Kamau Brathwaite; Caribbean Man in Space and Time. Small Axe 1 November 2021; 25 (3 (66)): 90–104. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/07990537-9583432
Download citation file:
Advertisement
