Presentation of character and argument through tropes of personal writing in Mariama Bâ's “So Long a...

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" Presentation of character and argument through tropes of personal writing in Mariama Bâ's “So Long a Letter” [and] Landscape aesthetics and Antillean identity in Derek Walcott's “Omeros” "
Waveney Hyacinth Olembo J. W. Attebery, Curt

Document Type	:	Latin Dissertation
Language of Document	:	English
Record Number	:	53527
Doc. No	:	TL23481
Call number	:	‭3247614‬
Main Entry	:	Waveney Hyacinth Olembo
Title & Author	:	Presentation of character and argument through tropes of personal writing in Mariama Bâ's “So Long a Letter” [and] Landscape aesthetics and Antillean identity in Derek Walcott's “Omeros”\ Waveney Hyacinth Olembo
College	:	Idaho State University
Date	:	2006
Degree	:	D.A.
student score	:	2006
Page No	:	123
Abstract	:	I. This interdisciplinary study applies selected tropes of the letter and diary as types of personal writing to a study of the epistolary novel So Long a Letter. Bâ herself acknowledges and foregrounds both the letter and diary as features in the title and first paragraph of the text. So Long a Letter was first published in 1980 as Une si longue lettre and was translated into English by Modupé Bodé-Thomas. It is the first epistolary novel by a female writer published in Africa and its author was presented with the first Noma award for writing on the African continent. My work extends the work of critics like Ada Uzoamaka Azodo (2003) who acknowledges the hybrid nature of the text but focuses on features like its subjectivity and its reach into gender politics. It also carries forward the work of Mildred Mortimer (1990), who investigates how Ramatoulaye's act of writing results in liberation and healing, and Shari Coulis (2003) who writes that the work does not fit any genre and that the idea of genre should be abandoned. I categorize the text as a letter-diary and argue that Bâ integrates the several tropes of personal writing, giving them varying prominence according to the changing subjective states of the writer/protagonist. This view contradicts Ann McElaney-Johnson (1999) who writes that it is the epistolary aspect of the work that gives it its meaning. II. This study examines the ways in which Derek Walcott (b. 1930) has made literary use of the St. Lucian landscape in his long poem Omeros (1990) to present his artist's conception in a New World island environment. The study focuses on a series of incidents in Omeros including invocations, visitations, and dream visions through which Walcott explores the artist's role in society. The study shows that in the absence of a history symbolized by ruins, the poet is able to conceptualize his inspiration, his responsibility, and his vision through a pattern of codes drawn from the natural landscape. My study is an extension of critical discussions like Lance Callahan's that claim that Walcott's naturalistic code is difficult to decipher and must be forgiven, or Paul Breslin's who claims that Walcott's language is necessarily complex because of the many influences that bear on it. It also groups together the landscape codes that are directly associated with the poet's search for his unique role as artist.
Subject	:	Language, literature and linguistics; Antillean; Argument; Ba, Mariama; Character; Landscape aesthetics; Omeros; Personal writing; Senegal; So Long a Letter; St. Lucia; Walcott, Derek; Literature; African literature; Caribbean literature; 0298:Literature; 0316:African literature; 0360:Caribbean literature
Added Entry	:	J. W. Attebery, Curt
Added Entry	:	Idaho State University