Poetics of the Antilles : Poetry, History and Philosophy in the Writings of Perse, Césaire, Fanon and Glissant

«Poetics of the Antilles» explores the poetry and thought of four major Francophone Caribbean writers: Perse, Césaire, Fanon and Glissant. The book portrays the complex history of the negritude movements in light of Fanon's critique and reveals the original aesthetic ideas and philosophical reflections on which these authors' rich production rests. Cover Title Copyright Contents Acknowledgements Note on Translations and References Aimé Césaire Frantz Fanon Abbreviations Introduction: Poetry, History, Philosophy of the Antilles Part I: Poetry and Subjectivity Chapter 1: The Plane and the Discrete: Virtual Communities in French Caribbean Poetry. From Mallarmé and Perse to Césaire and Glissant Prose du tout-monde and fragmentation of history I Perse: Heteroclite, heraclitean and erotic II Mallarmé: Chalice/Calyx III Césaire: Verrition, Ptyx, Armadillo ... IV Black salt Chapter 2: Pustules, Spirals, Volcanoes: Images and Moods in Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal Chapter 3: Ontology and Subjectivity: On Césaire’s Late Poetry Appendices A A Commentary on Négritude in Cahier d’un retour au pays natal Paris nègre Composition of the Cahier Négritude and the prophetic stance B Deux néologismes de Césaire C Obituary: Aimé Césaire (1913–2008) Part II: History: Negritude, Alienation and Freedom Chapter 4: The Heart of the Black Race: Parisian Negritudes in the 1920s Populations Political transformations and individual destinies The word ‘nègre’ Chapter 5: Corps Perdu: A Note on Fanon’s Cogito Chapter 6: Alienation and Freedom: Fanon on Psychiatry and Revolution Importance of the doctorate of 1951 on ‘mental alterations’ Organogenesis and psychogenesis Value and limits of neuropsychiatric treatments Socialtherapy and culture: The experience of Blida Beyond the institution Chapter 7: L’Afrique de Fanon Part III: Philosophy: Chance, Event and Consciousness Chapter 8: The Idea of an Impersonal Consciousness: Deleuze and Sartre Thought as event An impersonal consciousness A short history of immanence The plane of immanence as a field of impersonal consciousness An expressive but non-representational subjectivity The unconscious: Desiring machine and not theatre of representation Body without organs and faciality Chapter 9: Poétique de l’identité vécue comme hasard (Perse, Michaux, Deleuze, Glissant) Dispersion Turbulences Problème du problème Prose du tout-monde Bibliography The essays collected in this volume study the poetry and thought of four major Francophone Caribbean writers: Saint-John Perse, Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon and Édouard Glissant. In a context where identity was a question, an original conception of subjectivity appeared, as the end point rather than the origin of a process which was inseparably poetic and political. It entailed an aesthetics of dispersion or errance, rather than belonging. This volume thus questions the traditional teleological narrative of negritude as ‘renaissance'or ‘awakening'. A careful look at the birth of different negritude movements shows the complexity of this history and explains Fanon's philosophical and political critique of the notion. These writers'astonishingly rich production rests on original aesthetic ideas and philosophical reflections which the vagaries of history and displacement, and their comparison with major metropolitan literary movements, had masked. Fanon's thought is at the heart of the book, but this volume also traces the important debates these authors had with the major French thinkers of their time, notably Bergson, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and Deleuze.