I am subject to a tyrant A sorcerer

I am subject to a tyrant, A sorcerer, that by his cunning hath Cheated me of the island (p. 53) Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” (1899; Philippines/English) Roberto Fernández Retamar, “Caliban” (1971; Cuba/Spanish) <don’t worry!> What happened to Caliban? What happened to Prospero? Three islands (decolonizing), three answers as history changes the scene Friday forum: Meet Caliban! 11 a. m. (2/16); BS 3 1200 Kamau Brathwaite (1968, 1994; Barbados/English) [blog] [next time] Aimé Césaire, A Tempest (1969 Martinique/French). Bring your book!!! Office hours: Th 12: 30 -2 (MKH 162)

Caliban’s parting words: Ay, that I will; and I’ll be wise hereafter, And seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass Was I to take this drunkard for a god And worship this dull fool! (p. 86)

I am subject to a tyrant, A sorcerer, that by his cunning hath Cheated me of the island (p. 53) Rudyard Kipling, “The White Man’s Burden” (1899; Philippines/English) Roberto Fernández Retamar, “Caliban” (1971; Cuba/Spanish) <don’t worry!> What happened to Caliban? What happened to Prospero? Three islands (decolonizing), three answers as history changes the scene Friday forum: Meet Caliban! 11 a. m. (2/16); BS 3 1200 Kamau Brathwaite (1968, 1994; Barbados/English) [next time] Aimé Césaire, A Tempest (1969 Martinique/French). Bring your book!!! Office hours: Th 12: 30 -2 (MKH 162)

In Shakespeare Language is the partner to empire. But that same language can be used against empire. Those who use language to promote with empire learn that it is vulnerable. [Prospero] After Shakespeare The language of Shakespeare became a partner to empire. [Kipling] But Shakespeare could be used (reinterpreted) to critique empire, allowing subjects of empire to realize their power, control over own destiny. [Brathwaite] Over time, using Shakespeare, “real” pursuers of empire (colonizers) learned how vulnerable they were. [= Kipling] Over time, using Shakespeare, their colonial Those who use language to undermine empire learn that it can replicate the power subjects learned the limits of their power as well. structure it seems to challenge. [Caliban] [Brathwaite]

1. 1611 -mid-1900 s: Colonial Expansion via Shakespeare’s Empire 2. Decolonization and the Caribbean 3. Prospero’s burden (Kipling) 4. Caliban our symbol: Fernández Retamar 4. Appropriation strategies 5. Kamau Brathwaite’s poems: Caliban speaks for himself (“Caliban”), writes back (“Letter Sycorax”) I am subject to a tyrant, A sorcerer, that by his cunning hath Cheated me of the island (p. 53)

Rudyard Kipling (1865 -1936)

• Words shared with Shakespeare: “burden, ” “profit, ” “devil, ” “child, ” “peoples” • Verbal qualities in common with Prospero: incantatory language through repetition to persuade, achieve power (“take”) • Iambic meter (English stress pattern) • Uniformity of rhyme scheme, line number • “white man” = “good and decent human being” (whiteness=goodness)

What is “the White Man’s burden”? Shakespeare: Prospero: “let us not burden our remembrance with/A heaviness that’s gone” (p. 82). Burden is metaphorical and relationship to it is chosen. Caliban enters with a “burden of wood”; burden imposed and literal (p. 41). Verse 1: Take up the White Man’s burden— Send forth the best ye breed— Go bind your sons to exile To serve your captives’ need; To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered folk and wild— Your new-caught, sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.

The language of Shakespeare became a partner to empire. Over time, using Shakespeare, “real” pursuers of empire learned how vulnerable they were.

Decolonization in the Caribbean islands (20 th century)

The middle passage: Most colonial subjects of the Caribbean islands are of African descent; their ancestors were slaves. They thus came from elsewhere (like Caliban) Fernaández Retamar did not. s colonized peoples as children, savages, half-andhalf, undeveloped and unfi…. • …So does Retmar

“Caliban: Notes toward a Discussion of Culture in Our America” (1971; reprint Massachusetts Review (1974) and many times over—collected in the volume of essays Todo Caliban (1985) Cuban revolutionary Major figure in Castro’s intellectual program; president of Casa de las Américas (Havana publishing house, cultural foundation) In constant dialogue with Spanish / American intellectuals. Roberto Fernández Retamar (1930 -)

Depictions of Caliban, 18 th-21 st centuries

“Prospero invaded the islands, killed our ancestors, enslaved Caliban, and taught him his language to make himself understood. What else can Caliban do but use that same language—today he has no other—to curse him, to wish that the ‘red plague’ would fall on him? I know no other metaphor more expressive of our cultural situation, of our reality. … What is our history, what is our culture, if not the history and culture of Caliban? ” (p. 24) “Caliban is the symbol of our time. ’

Shares Kipling’s language of underdevelopment: Latin American and especially Caribbean people are seen as a “rough draft, ” incomplete Wants to take back ”the name carib: which has been deformed and defamed” (p. 12) Reclaims NAMES in last paragraph of all Calibans including Túpac Amaru, Castro, Césaire. Major tool of critique = “”trace…history” of words like carib (11) Roberto Fernández Retamar (1930 -)

How can Caliban appropriate the colonizer’s language and make it his own, thus defining his own past and future? ? of Apppropriation Copy (=mimicry: never as good) Mock/satirize Dialogue (Fernández Retamar; requires equal power) Transpose (move into new environment/context) Translate (can become creative revision) ‘Ban, Ca—Caliban Has a new master. Get a new man! Freedom, high day! High day, freedom Freedom, high day, freedom! (47)

born in Barbados Edward LAWson Brathwaite Educated in British universities; taught in major American ones Kamau Brathwaite(1930 - ) Gets Kiswahili name from Ngũgĩw a Thiong’o’s grandmother Founded Savacou—a West Indian journal recognizing need for Caribbeans to control ways they are represented

Letter Sycorax

prospero get curse wid im own curser • I mwangles it • a cyan get nutten rite a cyan get nutten really rite chipp/in dis poem onta dis tab. let chiss. ellin dark. ness writing in light like i is a some, is a some body in prospero ling. go. • MOMMA = Sycorax