Reinaldo Arenas, Caliban, and Postcolonial Discourse PDF Download

Author:
Publisher: Cambria Press
ISBN: 1621968359
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Author: Enrique Morales-Díaz
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781624991998
Category : Caliban (Fictitious character)
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Reinaldo Arenas Fuentes (1943-1990) was a novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, and short story writer considered by many as one of the most eloquent and daring literary figures of his generation. Some of his most known works include the five novel series known as the Pentagony (Pentagona): Celestino antes del alba, El palacio de las blanqusimas mofetas, Otra vez el mar, El color del verano o el jardn de las delicias, and El as alto. Other literary works by Arenas include El central, Voluntad de vivir manifestndose, La vieja Rosa, Arturo, la estrella ms brillante, El mundo alucinante, Adios a mam, Antes que anochezca: una autobiografa and his one act plays Persecucin: cinco piezas de teatro experimental. The themes he explored in his writing ran counter to what Fidel Castro and the revolutionary regime expected from its intellectual citizens. While Castro wanted everyone that wished to be published on the island to succumb to the ideals of the revolution, to promote them in their works, Arenas refused because he believed in the artistic freedom of expression. While he began his adolescence in support of the rebels that were fighting against Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship, he began attacking the revolution when the institutionalized persecution of homosexuals began in Cuba. The research that has been done on Reinaldo Arenas has often focused on his sexuality and his opposition to the revolution. Hundreds of articles have dealt with either specific literary works or themes present in his writing, either using Queer Theory or more traditional literary analysis. However, none have focused on the idea that Arenas could be considered a postcolonial writer since there is a question as to whether that particular theoretical approach can be applied to that region. A study of the relationship between a writer such as Arenas, who refused to conform to the idea that the individual had to become part of a larger collective, and the iconic image of Caliban as he has been appropriated by many Latin American scholars and activists, is necessary to understand the conditions under which many marginalized groups lived whether we are referring to Cuba or any other Latin American country. This is the first critical study of Reinaldo Arenas from a postcolonial venue. It seeks to find the commonalities that exist between Arenas and the image of Caliban which first appeared in William Shakespeare's The Tempest. The focus is to show how the appropriation of this seventeenth-century image of the New World native can be used to understand the goals of Arenas' writing: to counter attack the regime's goals and false promises which fueled his desire to create a literary counter-discourse that promoted freedom of expression and assertion of an identity separate from that expected by Cuban revolutionary society. Arenas' characters represent imperialistic influences in Cuba that opposed the regime's demands upon expected literary support of their agenda: not only because his characters could be interpreted as a form of mimesis of the treatment various individuals endured on the island, but also because Arenas' messages opposed the ideals of the Revolution. As homosexuality became marginalized and discrimination of homosexuals became institutionalized, Arenas' writing transgressed the expected silence by graphically describing his life, and particularly his sexual adventures and voracity. At the same time, his writings reflect a search for his identity and authorial voice. The arguments in this book focus on a discussion of Reinaldo Arenas' struggle against censorship focused precisely on reestablishing the individual the regime hopes to reeducate. The author's motivations for interpolating his writing at the root of the very society that denies him an existence can be equated to postcolonial discourse. This book is of interest to areas such as Latin American studies and postcolonial studies.

Author: Donna Woodford-Gormley
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030873676
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 171

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Shakespeare in Cuba: Caliban’s Books explores how Shakespeare is consumed and appropriated in Cuba. It contributes to the underrepresented field of Latin American Shakespeares by applying the lens of cultural anthropophagy, a theory with Latin American roots, to explore how Cuban artists ingest and transform Shakespeare’s plays. By consuming these works and incorporating them into Cuban culture and literature, Cuban writers make the plays their own while also nourishing the source texts and giving Shakespeare a new afterlife.

Author: T. Robbins
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137444711
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Examining a rich new generation of Latin American writers, this collection offers new perspectives on the current status of Latin American literature in the age of globalization. Authors explored are from the Boom and Postboom periods, including those who combine social preoccupations, like drug trafficking, with aesthetic ones.

Author: Hatem Mohammed Al-Shamea
Publisher: 24by7 Publishers.com
ISBN: 9388484584
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 101

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The book is a critical search for the hidden threads of origins of unfinished colonialism in the Arab World, particularly Yemen. It exposes the new form of colonialism which has been running in the name of fighting terrorism. The book also unravels the man-made norms that deconstruct the (Yemeni) Arab identity and herald the emergence of the violent sects. For that, the book has critically decoded the unread messages of the Yemeni novelist Wajdi al-Ahdal in his controversial novels, Mountainous Boats 2002, A Donkey among Songs 2004, Quarantine Philosopher 2007, A Land without Jasmine 2008. The book also questions the ongoing violence and the Arab Spring (Uprisings) which began in 2010 and is still up-to-now leading to a socio-political collapse of the Arab countries, particularly Yemen. The book reveals the dark side of religious clerics who have been legitimizing the corruption of the dictators in the Arab world.

Author: Gerlinde Didea
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3640243722
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 16

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Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, course: Oberseminar Theories of American Studies, 4 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Postcolonial theory results from a network of political and cultural tensions between colonizers and colonized. This approach will de-construct Eurocentrism showing that European values and standards are not universal. Highlighting that the same historical event can be interpreted in radically different ways depending on perspective, norms and values, accepted values will be destabilized and marked as constructs. Further, this paper will question the reasons given for colonialism and deconstructs them in order to reveal the economic or political interests they are based on. I will critically examine the representations of Caliban’s culture in Western discourse. In The Tempest, cultural ideology provides the ideological network for the colonial endeavours which could be theorized as bringing progress to an archaic world. A striking example for the strategy deconstructing “othering” is revealed in Chapter 1 where Caliban is presented as a completely inhuman being revealing strong racism. Therefore, Shakespeare implicitly legitimizes the colonial endeavor, because people like Caliban deprived of full humanity can be regarded as people without history, culture and they have therefore no logical claim to sovereignty. Shakespeare also produces a symptomatic reading of western discourse by psychoanalyzing to reveal western fear of the “other”.

Author: Jenny Roch
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638376788
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 10

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Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English - Literature, Works, grade: 15/20, University of Glasgow (Department of English Literature), course: Shakespeare/module11/ University of Glasgow, 9 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Ever since its publication in 1609 (?), The Tempest has been a hugely appreciated play, most probably on account of its ability to satisfy everyone’s taste: music and dancing, action, suspense, comedy and love, The Tempest has got it all. But just as the play is enjoyable, it is also complicated, multilayered. Recent criticism of the play, especially since the 1950s, has focused on the colonial discourse supposedly underlying the play. Stephen Greenblatt for instance, on the sub ject of Caliban, argues that he ‘is anything but a Noble Savage’. For James Smith, he is ‘one of the most obviously nightmarish figures in the play’. I have in the past six months seen two productions of The Tempest, and never did it strike me as being a play infused with colonial discourse. Although Shakespeare’s interest in other cultures and exploring the ‘exotic’, the ‘other’ pervades the entire corpus of his work, one should be careful about freely associating this curiosity of the unknown with colonial discourse- whether deliberate or unintentional on Shakespeare’s part- or race-writing. ‘In discussion of value, Shakespeare is, of course, invariably treated as a special case, having come to serve as something like the gold standard of English Literature’. Although this is a contestable statement in itself, the aim of this essay is not to discuss the authority and reliability of Shakespeare as a playwright, but to question the views which label The Tempest as a colonial, post-colonial, proto - colonial play. There is no need to discuss the existence of othering in the play, as this would be stating the obvious. Rather, I would like to show that, although many incidents in the play may invite a reader to a colonial reading of the text, they can just as well be over- interpretations and fall victim to a subjugation of a discourse foreign to Shakespeare’s intentions.

Author: Bill Ashcroft
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134030061
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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In Shakespeare’s Tempest, Caliban says to Miranda and Prospero: "...you taught me language, and my profit on’t Is, I know how to curse. " With this statement, he gives voice to an issue that lies at the centre of post-colonial studies. Can Caliban own Prospero’s language? Can he use it to do more than curse? Caliban’s Voice examines the ways in which post-colonial literatures have transformed English to redefine what we understand to be ‘English Literature’. It investigates the importance of language learning in the imperial mission, the function of language in ideas of race and place, the link between language and identity, the move from orature to literature and the significance of translation. By demonstrating the dialogue that occurs between writers and readers in literature, Bill Ashcroft argues that cultural identity is not locked up in language, but that language, even a dominant colonial language, can be transformed to convey the realities of many different cultures. Using the figure of Caliban, Ashcroft weaves a consistent and resonant thread through his discussion of the post-colonial experience of life in the English language, and the power of its transformation into new and creative forms.

Author: Gita Rajan
Publisher: Praeger
ISBN: 0313296936
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Postcolonial discourse is fast becoming an area of rich academic debate. At the heart of coloniality and postcoloniality is the contested authority of empire and its impact upon previously colonized peoples and their indigenous cultures. This book examines various theories of colonization and decolonization, and how the ideas of a British empire create networks of discourses in contemporary postcolonial cultures. The various essays in this book address the question of empire by exploring such constructs as nation and modernity, third-world feminisms, identity politics, the status and roles of exiles, exilic subjectivities, border intellectuals, and the presence of a postcolonial body in today's classrooms. Topics discussed include African-American literature, the nature of postcolonial texts in first-world contexts, jazz, films, and TV as examples of postcolonial discourse, and the debates surrounding biculturalism and multiculturalism in New Zealand and Australia.

Author: Ania Loomba
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113426786X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
Highly acclaimed across academic disciplines and around the world, Ania Loomba's Colonialism/Postcolonialism has for many years been widely accepted as the essential introduction to this politically charged area of literary and cultural study.