Publication details

Sous le signe d'Ariel et de Caliban : double discours de la diaspora haitienne de Montréal

Title in English Under the Sign of Ariel and Caliban : Double Speech by the Haitian Diaspora of Montreal
Authors

KYLOUŠEK Petr

Year of publication 2018
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Acta Universitatis Carolinae. Philologica. Romanistica Pragensia
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Arts

Citation
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.14712/24646830.2018.46
Keywords Quebec literature; Haitian diaspora; conflicting cultures; emotion/knowledge; exile
Attached files
Description Ariel and Caliban, two characters from Shakespeare’s Tempest, served as emblematic metaphors for several interpretations of decolonization, particularly in the Caribbean context (Rubén Dário, José Enrique Rodó, Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon). Initially, the dichotomy was used along the North/South American axis (white/black, master/slave, civilized/barbaric, reason/instinct, and materialism/spirituality) and the argumentation of the authors in question was mainly ideological, focusing on the various civilizational factors. Since the Nineteen Seventies, these meanings have shifted to express the negotiation of cultural differences, or were used as an aesthetic counterpoint. Developments of this kind have had a positive impact on Quebec literature, particularly in the works of authors of the Haitian diaspora, such as Émile Ollivier, Dany Laferriere and Gérard Étienne. Wherever there is a thematic divide between the topographies of Montreal and those of Haiti the stylistic registers reflect the contrasts between intellectual distance and lyrical or epic emotion, between individualism and community, rationality and supernatural collective beliefs. Being positioned between the host land and the land of origin the characters look for emotional and noetical answers to their exiled existence.
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