English Literature: Caribbean Literature

Caribbean literature, literary works of the Caribbean area written in Spanish, French, or English. The literature of the Caribbean has no indigenous tradition. The pre-Columbian American Indians left few rock carvings or inscriptions (petroglyphs), and their oral traditions did not survive 16th-century Spanish colonization. The West Africans who replaced them were also without a written tradition, so for about 400 years Caribbean literature was an offshoot and imitation of the models of the colonial powers—Spain, France, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. Caribbean writers, however, were not unaware of their environment. The letters and speeches of Toussaint-Louverture, the Haitian general and liberator, indicate that from at least the end of the 18th century the Caribbean was conscious of its cultural identity. It was not until the 1920s, however, that the challenge of a distinctive literary form was accepted. Then, as part of Spanish-American Modernism, Spanish and French Caribbean writers began to break away from European ideals and to identify themselves with their fellow West Indians, most of whom were black.

Works Cited

"Caribbean literature." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 30 Jun. 2010. academic.eb.com/levels/collegiate/article/Caribbean-literature/20327. Accessed 16 Dec. 2024.

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