Alejo Carpen,er, The Kingdom of This World. Arts One Jon Beasley- Murray November, 2013

Transcription

1 Alejo Carpen,er, The Kingdom of This World Arts One Jon Beasley- Murray November, 2013

2 Sans Souci

3 Literature Carpen,er Narra,ve MaIer Form Spectacle Performance Revolu,on Ruins A Tour of the Ruins

4 LITERATURE

5 Plaque at the Citadelle La Ferrière

6 Great Texts Who decides? Borges, KaSa and His Precursors The present can influence the past Past texts become KaSaesque Rereading and reorganiza,on What is a Canon?

7 What is a Canon? Three literary canons are built on the ruins of Sans Souci and the Citadelle La Ferrière: the La,n American Boom; Francophone Caribbean literature; Anglophone postcolonial literature. The hemisphere s literature replays a legacy of violence and domina,on, reimagining the material traces of a history of revolu,ons.

8 The La,n American Boom 1960s and 1970s Gabriel García Márquez Mario Vargas Llosa Julio Cortázar Carlos Fuentes Lezama Lima, Donoso... Magic(al) Realism

9 The La,n American Boom The crea,on of a world market The migra,on of High Modernism The forma,on of a new style The compensa,on for underdevelopment A reflec,on on the role of literature

10 The La,n American Boom Many possible points of origin: Publishers, editors, translators, advocates Civiliza,on and Barbarism; Na,onal Romance Precursors: Asturias, Borges, Carpen,er Literary eclec,cism: Cervantes, Faulkner The Prologue to The Kingdom of this World

11 CARPENTIER

12 Inside the Citadelle

13 Aher having felt the undeniable enchantment of this Hai,an earth, aher having discerned magical warnings on the red roads of the Central Plateau, aher having heard the drums of Petro and Rada, I was moved to compare the marvelous reality I'd just experienced with the,resome aiempts to arouse the marvelous that has characterized certain European literatures for last thirty years. (Prologue)

14 Carpen,er Cuban Writer and ethnomusicologist France, Visits Hai, in 1943 Venezuela, The Lost Steps (1953)

15 NARRATIVE

16 The Citadelle

17 His narra,ve arts, when, with terrible gestures, he played the part of the different personages, held the men spellbound. (13) Drawing therefrom a number of philosophical considera,ons on the inequality of the human races which he planned to develop in a speech larded with La,n quota,ons. (46-7)

18 Narra,ve Folktales Religion Novels Newspapers Rumor Song Theatre This Novel

19 Narra,ve History as a series of flows Not the least of which are informa,on flows Words have power, and are troubling More or less linear, but episodic 1760s- 1820s Ti Noël as slave everyman, Forrest Gump

20 MATTER

21 Cannonballs at the Citadelle

22 Ti Noël clasped that white, chill skull under his arm, thinking how much it probably resembled the bald head of his master hidden beneath his wig. (9) Henri Christophe would never know the corrup,on of his flesh, flesh fused with the very stuff of the fortress, inscribed in its architecture, integrated with its body. (150)

23 MaIer Heads, skulls Arms, mills Women, statues Poison, fire Bricks, buildings Bodies, books Incarna,on and Reincarna,on

24 MaIer History as what hurts An ongoing violence Stress on affect, rather than ideology MaIer is resistant, but not impervious The material is also a means of expression This World vs the Heavens What forces move and shape us?

25 FORM

26 Sans Souci

27 The alert ears never despaired of hearing, at any moment, the vision of the great conch shell which would bellow through the hills to announce to all that Macandal had completed the cycle of his metamorphoses. (37) The substance was different, but the forms were the same. (159)

28 Form Metamorphosis Transforma,on Style Fashion Dress Remaking and Remodelling

29 Form Free Indirect Discourse Narrator and character(s) conflated, iden,fied MaIer is subject to point of view Magic realism: magic treated as though real What does the novel offer to history?

30 SPECTACLE

31 Vista from the Citadelle

32 A gala func,on for Negroes on whose splendor no expense had been spared. For this,me the lesson was to be driven home with fire, not blood, and certain illumina,ons, lighted to be remembered, were very costly. (44) The Negroes of the Plaine would raise their eyes to the fortress [...] thinking that there [...] a king of their own race was wai,ng. (118)

33 Spectacle Enlightenment Educa,on Visibility Color Aesthe,cs A New Regime of the Sensible

34 Spectacle A play of visibility and invisibility Appearance and Appari,ons Who can see what, when? Is power established through the gaze? Or despite it? Master/Slave dialec,c

35 PERFORMANCE

36 Football at Sans Souci

37 The Cap theater, where actresses from Paris sang Jean- Jacques Rousseau s arias or lohily declaimed tragic alexandrines. (52) It was as though all the purple conchs that served as doorstops, all the shells that lay alone and petrified on the summits of the hills, had begun to sing in chorus. (67)

38 Performance Bodies subject to gaze A world of appearances Or the body on the line Rituals and conjura,ons Who par,cipates? At nexus of narra,ve, maier, and spectacle

39 Performance Who are the actors in this novel? Does this change? How does performance shape iden,ty? Be all you can be? The surveyors: quan,fica,on and measure

40 REVOLUTION

41 The Citadelle

42 The Negro began to think that the chamber music orchestras of Sans Souci [ ] were all the product of a slavery as abominable as that he had known on the planta,on of M. Lenormand de Mézy. (116) The old man hurled his declara,on of war against the new masters, ordering his subjects to march in baile array. (179)

43 Revolu,on Making new Star,ng again Liberty Equality Fraternity Kingdom of God or Kingdom of Man?

44 Revolu,on When and why to resort to violence? What changes and what does not? Is Revolu,on worth it? Or is it, by contrast, inevitable? Sisyphus as revolu,onary?

45 RUINS

46 On the road to Milot

47 Ti Noël sat down on one of the cornerstones of the old mansion, now a stone like any other stone for those who did not remember. (106) The ruins threw a pleasant shade over the abundant grass, and if one dug in the dirt a liile it was not unusual to find a marble ear, a stone ornament, or an oxidized coin. (156)

48 Ruins Absence Presence Trace Interpreta,on Reconstruc,on Sign Hinge between Past and Present?

49 Ruins Modernity and moderniza,on built on ruins Crea,ve destruc,on Ruins are cajoled into underwri,ng power But they are also a reminder of temporality Ozymandias: warning or boast? The permanence of impermanence

50 More Resources Roberto González Echevarría, Alejo Carpen,er: The Pilgrim at Home C L R James, The Black Jacobins Peter Fritzsche, Stranded in the Present hip://artsone- open.arts.ubc.ca