Identifier

etd-0417102-130949

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

French Studies

Document Type

Dissertation

Abstract

This dissertation examines the different ways in which Edouard Glissant, Kateb Yacine and William Faulkner combine landscape, history and identity in their work. The depiction of landscape in literature is not new, but the French Romantics in the 19th century, for instance, tended to describe the beauty of landscape without conceiving any rapport between landscape and humankind, and thus created a gap between the two. For Kateb and Glissant, landscape is also a witness of History. The (hi)story of their respective communities has been confiscated and shattered by the respective colonizers, hence the necessity to recreate it through the poetics of land. However, because of the different contexts some differences in the conception and use of landscape arise between these three writers. In the case of Kateb Yacine, the Algerian landscape is the repository for the ancient history of North Africa. The North African people have to turn to their landscape in order to recreate their history and redefine their identity. For Edouard Glissant, the landscape was an accomplice of the Caribbean People. When the slaves escaped the plantation confinements the wilderness was their only refuge. It is then essential for the Caribbean community to take roots in this land in order to create its own history. In the case of William Faulkner, the land of his "Yoknapatawpha county" is presented as the podium where some injustices in the South took place, such as the dispossession of Indians, the spoliation of their lands, slavery, and above all the tragedy of the Civil War.

Date

2002

Document Availability at the Time of Submission

Release the entire work immediately for access worldwide.

Committee Chair

Jeff Humphries

DOI

10.31390/gradschool_dissertations.119

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