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Chapter 7 - Towards a West Indian Romance Poetics

from Part I - Literary and Generic Transitions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2020

By
Rhonda Kareen Harrison
Edited by
Evelyn O'Callaghan  and
Tim Watson
Evelyn O'Callaghan
Affiliation:
University of the West Indies
Tim Watson
Affiliation:
University of Miami
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Summary

This essay discusses the manner in which the romance is reconfigured in the West Indies and offers some generalized contexts and discussions as a way of formulating a working definition for the genre of the West Indian Romance. It examines the evolution of the West Indian romance during the period 1827–1917 and investigates the emergence and development of the West Indian romance, first, during the immediate pre- and post-Emancipation period, 1820–1860, and then from 1865 to 1918. It develops this discussion by using William Hamley’s Captain Clutterbuck’s Champagne: A West Indian Reminiscence (1862). This British version of the 'West Indian romance' is balanced against a reading of Stephen Cobham’s Rupert Gray: A Tale in Black and White (1907) with the aim of demonstrating the production of a West Indian romance in the modern colonial period by West Indian writers. Each of these perspectives provides a kaleidoscope of feelings that allows for a more comprehensive understanding of how the romance emerged and functioned.

Keywords

West Indian romance Rupert GrayCaptain Clutterbuck's ChampagneHamelthe Obeah Manmodern colonial
Type
Chapter
Information
Caribbean Literature in Transition, 1800–1920 , pp. 119 - 134
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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