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Jamaican Women Poets and Writers' Approaches to Spirituality and God By

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Jamaican Women Poets and Writers' Approaches to Spirituality and God By RE-CONNECTING THE SPIRIT: Jamaican Women Poets and Writers' Approaches to Spirituality and God by SARAH ELIZABETH MARY COOPER A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Centre of West African Studies School of Historical Studies The University of Birmingham October 2004 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract Chapter One asks whether Christianity and religion have been re-defined in the Jamaican context. The definitions of spirituality and mysticism, particularly as defined by Lartey are given and reasons for using these definitions. Chapter Two examines history and the Caribbean religious experience. It analyses theory and reflects on the Caribbean difference. The role that literary forefathers and foremothers have played in defining the writers about whom my research is concerned is examined in Chapter Three, as are some of their selected works. Chapter Four reflects on the work of Lorna Goodison, asks how she has defined God whether within a Christian or African framework. In contrast Olive Senior appears to view Christianity as oppressive and this is examined in Chapter Five. Chapter Six looks at the ways in which Erna Brodber re-connects the spirit. Chapter Seven regards the spiritually joyful God of Jean 'Binta' Breeze Conclusions are then drawn as to whether writers have adapted a God to the Jamaican context, whether they have re-connected to the spirit and if it is true that Jamaica is a spiritual nation. Dedication To my husband Paul, my daughter Laura and my son Scott for all their love and support, though none of them will probably ever read this. Acknowledgements I would like to thank my tutor Stewart Brown for all his help and patience and my friend Christine Harrop for her proof reading and enthusiasm. Table of Contents Introduction p.2 Chapter 1- Has Christianity been re-defined? Definitions of spirituality and mysticism p.7 The Historical Process of Religion p.l9 Evangelisation p.40 Hinduism and Islam in the Caribbean p.49 Africanisation p.52 Rastafarianism p.56 Has Religion been Re-defined? p.66 Conclusions p.67 Chapter 2- History and the Caribbean Religious Experience History and the Caribbean Religious Experience p.72 Theory and Caribbean Difference p.75 Language- a Jamaican Response - p.83 Feminism - a Jamaican Response - p.lOO Chapter 3- Literary Foremothers and Forefathers Literary Foremothers and Forefathers - Introduction p. 107 Literary Forefathers p.108 Literary Foremothers p.117 Chapter 4 Lorna Goodison - Christian God or African Traditions p.131 Transcendent spirituality p.145 Intra-personal spirituality p.l54 Interpersonal spirituality p.l58 Corporate spirituality p.166 Spatial spirituality p.170 Dreams p.l74 Rastafarianism p.177 Water p.179 Stones p.180 Goodison and Christianity p.183 Chapter 4 Olive Senior- Repressive Christianity or a Spiritual relationship with the Earth and Africa p.190 A Cruel God and a Repressive Church p.202 Identity p.217 African gods and cultivation p.219 Chapter 6 Erna Brodber- Re- connecting the spirit p.235 Re-connecting spirituality- finding intra, inter, corporate, spatial and transcendent spirituality p.243 Chapter 7 Jean Binta Breeze- Christian Spiritual? Christian spirituality p.271 A personal relationship with God and community p.277 Spatial spirituality - God is everywhere p.288 Conclusions Relationship with transcendence p.292 Intra-personal spirituality p.293 Inter-personal spirituality p.294 Corporate spirituality p.295 Spatial spirituality p.296 The Church p.296 Bibliography p.299 Appendix 1 Fieldtrip to Jamaica Appendix 2 Fieldtrip to Egypt and Africa Appendix 3 Interviews with various Jamaican writers and poets Appendix 4 Interview with Theresa Lo Chang- Liberation Theologist Sarah Cooper Introduction p.2 Sarah Cooper Introduction JAMACI Many Jamaicans, when asked, believe themselves to be a very spiritual people. Often they regard themselves as having a close personal relationship with God and feel that God dwells within them. Patrick Taylor (ed), Nation Dance- Religion, Identity and Cultural Difference in the Caribbean, (Indiana, Bloomington, 200 I, p.10) argues that religion provides a fundamental source of identity. This sense of the' Divine' is never far from the natural world and it is women, in particular, who are traditionally regarded as the repository for the spiritual. There are high proportions of churches of various denominations compared to secular buildings in Jamaica. Gordon Collier' At the gates of Cultures of the New World Religions, Mythology, and Folk- belief in West Indian Poetry,' in Jamie Scott, (ed) (1996), 'And the Birds Began to Sing - Religion and Literature in Post-Colonial Cultures, (Amsterdam, Rodolpi, 1996, p.227) recognises this in the context of literature and states that: "West Indian poetry has always had a spiritual and spirited edge to it." This, it could be argued, is reflected in various ways in the work of the writers who are considered in this thesis: Olive Senior, Lorna Goodison, Pam Mordecai, Ema Brodber and Jean 'Binta' Breeze. In this thesis the writers' perceptions of God and their relationship with God will be examined. Moreover whether their relationship with God has been re-defined within a Jamaican context will be questioned as a result of reviewing and discussing their work. Spirituality is not easy to define and a homogeneous definition is not possible. Emmanuel Lartey, the Ghanaian theologian (Interview in 1999) comments that the 2 Sarah Cooper words spirituality, spiritualism and mysticism are used virtually interchangeably, with people now using spirituality where they mean mysticism. Rex Nettleford (Interview in 2001) considers, somewhat sceptically, that 'spirituality' is a fashionable term, used instead of 'religion' by 'ladies of quality'. There has always been a strong didactical and dialectical relation between religion and colonisation and also religion and history. Christianity was imposed on Jamaica as part of the process of colonisation. Whilst the church may be a representative symbol of oppression, it can also provide solace. Christianity can have both a positive and a negative influence. This Christianity is illustrated by some of the examined writers, with biblical references and phrases found in their poetry and writing (for example the Gospel according to St John, referred to in Lorna Goodison's work) which can, at times, contribute to spiritual depth. Others of these writers have discovered their own spiritual and cultural ground in the notion of a lost Africa or a spiritual connection with nature, whilst some of the writers examined have de- colonised and adapted Christianity to the Caribbean. Although Christianity came with the colonisers, has it remained the same theologically - a part of a Euro-centric model? This Christianity may be the model of a white God and at times a restrained faith, which can sometimes, but not always, be gloomy. Or has it been adapted and re-defined so that it has become more relevant and meaningful within a Caribbean and especially Jamaican context? If it has been adapted, how is this explained in a literary context? 3 Sarah Cooper Churches in Jamaica have been fragmented and poets and writers represent and reflect this fragmentation in their work. Jamaican literature and art however do not always conform to the European model, but can tend to be more collective and celebratory, especially in more recent writing. (Collier, 1994, p.227). For example, few poets and writers of the present day in Europe write in an openly celebratory manner about Christianity (and expect to get published). However, writers such as Jean Binta Breeze and Lorna Goodison do. The women of the study have not written in isolation, as there are those who have preceded them - their literary forefathers and literary foremothers, who also had something to say about 'spirituality'. The writers who were studied all seem to recognise a spiritual base, but whilst it is impossible to generalise the notion of Jamaican spirituality, they identify it as an important part of Jamaican culture and deal with it in different ways to produce a diversity of responses. The methodology that I have employed in researching this thesis includes fieldwork undertaken in Jamaica. This involved attending church services and meetings of different denominations as well as talking to local people about their perceptions of spirituality and poets and writers. I also visited the University of Jamaica and met with Victor Chang (Appendix 1). I visited Egypt to research the background to Lorna Goodison's poems on Egypt and Sufism and met with the renowned Egyptologist Maher Haggag to discuss Sufism. I have also visited South Africa as background to other poems by Lorna Goodison. (Appendix 2) I have interviewed and listened to readings by Lorna Goodison, Olive Senior and Honor Ford Smith and also Mervyn Morris, Rex Nettleford, Allison Donnell and Emmanuel Lartey. (Appendix 3) 4 Sarah Cooper I have attended a meeting on Liberation Theology given by Theresa Lo Chang at Birmingham (Appendix 4) I would regard this research as fundamental to a better understanding of Jamaica, of religion and spirituality as well as of the poets and writers - both past and present and has led to a multi-disciplinary approach which includes theology and anthroplogy as well as literature. In addition I have undertaken close readings of the works studied and decided to use Emmanuel Lartey's definitions of spirituality because there was a danger that the work would be too broad and these definitions would give boundaries and a framework with which to study the poets and writers.
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