The Poetics and Politics of Affect and Access in Selected Poetry by Julia Alvarez

Abstract

Taking threads of affect theory as a speculative backdrop, this study is to demonstrate how Julia Alvarez‘s poems reflect the politics of affect and access in Latino-American context. Hinging on Baruch Spinoza‘s view that melancholy and happiness are the two major affects out of which other positive and negative ones, including fear, pain, shame and pride, spring out, and advocating the view of the Australian British thinker, Sara Ahmed on the politics of affects in general and happiness in particular, the study is to show how Alvarez‘s poetry conveys the wavering affects the Dominican American migrant experiences in the attempt to gain social, linguistic, professional and literary access to the mainstream white community. To achieve its objectives, the study is to be divided into two parts: the first part is to present an overview of the lexicographic, epistemic rooting of the concept of ―affect‖ and introduce the reader to Spinoza and Ahmed‘s views on positive and negative affects with particular focus on happiness and melancholy, and the second part is to read selected poems by Alvarez in light of the speculative background illustrated . In addition to enriching the increasingly growing affect theory scholarship, the importance of the study lies in foregrounding the virtuosity of Alvarez‘ poetic vision, which, in contrast to her prose, has not received its due critical attention.