Literary cannibalism
Subtitle: almost the same, but not quite/almost the same, but not white
By: by Felisa Vergara Reynolds
Published: 2009
Language: eng
Number of pages: 236
Description: I propose that literary cannibalism occurs when Aimé Césaire takes Shakespeare's The Tempest and gives us Une tempête ; when Boubacar Boris Diop takes on Prosper Mérimée by re-writing Tamango as Le temps de Tamango ; when Assia Djebar seeks to right history in L'amour, la fantasia by challenging the 'official historical' account of the French invasion of Algeria in 1830; and when Maryse Condé creates La migration des coeurs based on Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights. Under the topos of literary cannibalism, I explore in depth the following questions: What is the effect achieved when francophone writers cannibalize Western canonical literary works? In the re-appropriation and re-writing of these works, should we speak of literary cannibalism or of colonial mimicry? Are we to interpret these re-appropriations as a violent act of revolt in keeping with the aggressive act of cannibalism, or merely as the submissive act of colonial mimicry? If indeed "we are what we eat," what is the significance of consuming the works of the empire and/or of the colonizer? The answer lies in the central tenet of my thesis, which revolves around the a priori assumption that literary cannibalism is an aggressive and transgressive act and not a dependent colonial act.

Consequently, in my thesis, I examine the outright menace posed by the mimicry associated with literary cannibalism. Subsequently, literary cannibalism reveals itself to be a distinct form of post-colonial revolt by francophone writers. Moreover, it is my contention that in order to understand properly the mimetic and aggressive act of literary cannibalism as a post-colonial revolt, its historico-political roots must be examined. I propose that the challenge to the canon occurs concurrently with political changes associated with independence from the former colonizing powers in the respective homelands of the selected authors. Literary cannibalism is a literary reaction to a political circumstance. From this perspective, the act of re-writing the canon can be interpreted as a weapon used to de-sacralize and neutralize that which stood throughout centuries for imperialism and oppression. By cannibalizing canonical works, francophone writers strip a heretofore indomitable source of its power.
Notes: "April 2009."

Thesis (Ph.D., Dept. of Romance Languages and Literatures)--Harvard University, 2009.

Includes bibliographical references.