West Indian Literary History: Literariness, Orality and Periodization

Abstract

main subjects in this presentation are orality in West Indian writing, and periodization in the constructing of a comparative history of Caribbean literatures in European languages. A proper approach to any comparison requires that each of the things to be compared should be seen as itself first. There are, moreover, practical reasons for beginning with an attempt to define or declare some of the main features and elements of what is called West Indian Literature. In the free-for-all that followed Columbus's accidental entry to the New World, the Caribbean area was carved up and shared out, and then shared over and over again by the European powers. Although there have been new cultural and linguistic influences and new political realities since the decline of the Empires, we still think of these places as French-, Dutch-, English-, or Spanish-speaking. On the surface, at any rate, each of these groups continues to use a variant of the language of the colonizer. When the English-speaking territories formed themselves into a political federation in 1959, the name chosen for the nation-to-be was The West Indies. federation broke up almost at once, but the name has remained to signal a reality stronger than any political institution. Three cultural institutions exist to keep alive the federal idea: the University of the West Indies, the all-conquering West Indian cricket team, and West Indian literature.