Voices of Negritude in Modernist Print : Aesthetic Subjectivity, Diaspora, and the Lyric Regime

354 Pages·2015·2.9 MB·English

by  Noland

VOICES OF NEGRITUDE IN
MODERNIST PRINT
Modernist Latitudes
MODERNIST LATITUDES
Jessica Berman and Paul Saint-Amour, Editors Modernist
Latitudes aims to capture the energy and ferment of modernist
studies by continuing to open up the range of forms, locations,
temporalities, and theoretical approaches encompassed by the field.
The series celebrates the growing latitude (“scope for freedom of
action or thought”) that this broadening affords scholars of
modernism, whether they are investigating little-known works or
revisiting canonical ones. Modernist Latitudes will pay particular
attention to the texts and contexts of those latitudes (Africa, Latin
America, Australia, Asia, Southern Europe, and even the rural United
States) that have long been misrecognized as ancillary to the
canonical modernisms of the global North.
Barry McCrea, In the Company of Strangers: Family and Narrative in Dickens,
Conan Doyle, Joyce, and Proust, 2011
Jessica Berman, Modernist Commitments: Ethics, Politics, and Transnational
Modernism, 2011
Jennifer Scappettone, Killing the Moonlight: Modernism in Venice, 2014
Nico Israel, Spirals: The Whirled Image in Twentieth-Century Literature and Art,
2015
VOICES OF NEGRITUDE IN MODERNIST
PRINT
Aesthetic Subjectivity, Diaspora, and the
Lyric Regime
Carrie Noland
Columbia University Press New York
Columbia University Press
Publishers Since 1893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Copyright © 2015 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
E-ISBN 978-0-231-53864-0
Columbia University Press gratefully acknowledges permission to reprint the following:
Extracts from “Le temps des noyaux,” “Tentative de description d’un dîner de têtes à Paris-France,” and
“La grasse matinée” in Paroles by Jacques Prévert appear by permission from Éditions Gallimard.
“Cubes” from The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes, edited by Arnold Rampersad
with David Roessel, associate editor, copyright © 1994 by the Estate of Langston Hughes. Used by
permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random
House LLC. All rights reserved. Other rights by permission of Harold Ober Associates Incorporated.
Aimé Césaire, Cahier d’un retour au pays natal © Présence Africaine Editions, 1956.
Léon-Gontran Damas, Pigments-Névralgies © Présence Africaine Editions, 1972.
The Collected Poetry by Aimé Césaire, translated by Clayton Eshleman and Annette J. Smith, © 1983 by
the Regents of the University of California. Published by the University of California Press.
Excerpts of chapter 1 were previously published in Gail Hart and Anke S. Biendarra, eds., Visions of
Europe: Interdisciplinary Contributions to Contemporary Cultural Debates (Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang, 2014).
Chapter 5 appeared in an earlier version as “Red Front / Black Front: Aimé Césaire and the Affaire
Aragon,” Copyright © 2006 Johns Hopkins University Press. This article was first published in Diacritics 36,
no. 1 (Spring 2006): 64–84. Reprinted with permission by Johns Hopkins University Press. The author
thanks both publishers for granting permission to reprint her work.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Noland, Carrie, 1958–
Voices of Negritude in Modernist Print: Aesthetic Subjectivity, Diaspora, and the Lyric Regime /
Carrie Noland.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-231-16704-8 (cloth: alk. paper) —ISBN 978-0-231-53864-0 (ebook)
1. French poetry—Foreign countries—History and criticism. 2. French poetry—Black authors—History and
criticism. 3. Negritude (Literary movement). 4. African diaspora in literature. 5. Book industries and trade
—France—History—20th century. 6. Literature—Aesthetics. 7. Blacks in literature. 8. Modernism
(Aesthetics)—France. I. Title.
PQ3897.N65 2014
840.9'896—dc23
2014013368
A Columbia University Press E-book.
CUP would be pleased to hear about your reading experience with this e-book at cup-
[email protected].
References to Internet Web sites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor
Columbia University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the
manuscript was prepared.
Mais je suis fondamentalement un poète, quelqu’un qui se cherche et se
trouve dans et par le langage.
—Aimé Césaire, Interview with Jean Pierre Salgas, Jeune Afrique, no. 1142
(Paris, November 24, 1982), 72
Figure 0.1: Léon-Gontran Damas and Aimé Césaire at a book signing celebrating the twenty-fifth
anniversary of their early work, in Martinique, 1972. Photographer unknown. Photographs and Prints
Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox,
and Tilden Foundations.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. “Seeing with the Eyes of the Work” (Adorno): Césaire’s Cahier and Modernist
Print Culture
2. The Empirical Subject in Question: A Drama of Voices in Aimé Césaire’s Et les
chiens se taisaient
3. Poetry and the Typosphere in Léon-Gontran Damas
4. Léon-Gontran Damas: Writing Rhythm in the Interwar Period
5. Red Front / Black Front: Aimé Césaire and the Affaire Aragon
6. To Inhabit a Wound: A Turn to Language in Martinique
Conclusion
Appendix 1 English Translation of Léon-Gontran Damas’s “Hoquet”
Appendix 2 English Translation of Aimé Césaire’s “Calendrier lagunaire”
Notes
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to several granting agencies that made it
possible for me to finish this book: the American Council of Learned Societies
and the National Endowment for the Humanities jointly accorded me an
ACLS/SSRC/NEH International and Area Studies Fellowship that released me
from teaching during the academic year 2011–2012; the International Center
for Writing and Translation and the Council of Research, Computing and
Library Resources at the University of California, Irvine, supported my
research trip to Martinique in 2009.
I would also like to thank the librarians and curators who helped me find
the materials I needed: Diana Lachatanere and Mary Yearwood at the
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; Dominique Taffin at the
Archives Départementales in Fort-de-France; Dominique Ozonne at the
Bibliothèque Schoelcher in Fort-de-France; and a devoted librarian at the
Archives d’outre-mer in Aix-en-Provence. A website is asssociated with this
book where readers may find images that these librarians helped me locate:
http://faculty.sites.uci.edu/aestheticsubjectivity/. Cecile Gry shared her warm
home with me when I was conducting research in the South of France; Brent
Hayes Edwards facilitated my research on Léon-Gontran Damas at the
Schomburg Center in New York; and Vanessa Agard-Jones provided valuable
information for my stay in Fort-de-France.
In Martinique, I was fortunate to befriend Alise Meuris, who took me with
her on hikes through the jungle and taught me to identify some of the region’s
plants. Christian Lapoussinière was generous with his time. Richard and Sally
Price offered me a wonderful meal in their beautiful home. I will always be
grateful for their welcome and advice.
Back in the States, I gained inspiration from the musicological research of
Julian Gerstin, who turned out to be a neighbor. Professor Edward Ahearn, my
former teacher and mentor at Brown University, offered timely words of
encouragement. A. James Arnold provided a model of scholarly generosity