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For the Degree of Master of Arts Dalhousie University September, 1997

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For the Degree of Master of Arts Dalhousie University September, 1997 WITHBSSIHG THE flVISfBILITY: &?RICADIAN MUSES OF GEORGE E~,~,IoTTCUlRKE Colleen E. Pielechaty Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia September, 1997 0 Copyright by Colleen E. Pielechaty, 1997 Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services se wïces bibliographiques 395 Welfington Street 395. nie Wellington ûüawa ON K1A ON4 Ottawa ON K1A ON4 Canada Canada The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive Licence allowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or sell reproduire, prêter, distn'buer ou copies of this thesis in microfonn, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la fonne de rnicrofiche/film, de reproduction sur papier ou sur fonnat électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. - for Patricia, for inspiring to pursue such lush dreams TABLE OF COESTEHTS Table of Contents v Abstract vi Abbreviations and Symbols Used vii Acknowledgements viii Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Toward a Feminist Aesthetic(s) of 18 Beauty: Race, Gender, Ethics and the Early Muses of Clarke Chapter 2: De/Reconstructing a Gendered Hierarchy of Beauty in the "New Edenw of Whyl ah Fa11 s Chapter 3: 'Shouting in Tonguesw and Cutting Gazes: 89 The Staging of Feeminisms in Beatrice Chancy Conclus ion Notes Bibliography Witnessinq the Invisibility: the Africadian Muses of George El1 iott Clarke Merging the words Africa and Acadia, George Elliott Clarke has coined the term Afzicadia "to denote the Black populations of the Maritimes and especially of Nova Scotiam (Fire on the Water, Volume One 9 ) - populations which have flourished in Canada for more than two centuries. As a native poet and playwright of Black Nova Scotia, and as an editor of African-Canadian anthologies of poetry and fiction, Clarke seeks to give voice to the beauty of Africadia that has for too long been ignored by the '4monomanic musicw of Canada's %ational,/natural culturew (Lush Dreams, Blue Exile 77). This thesis investigates the relative status and authority of female muses in the liberating philosophy of beauty Clarke offers in Saltwater Spirituals and Deeper Blues (1983), Whylah Falls (1990), Lush Dreams, Blue Exile (1994) and Beatrice Chancy (1998). 1 argue that Clarke's poetics demonstrate the limitations of language and direct our attention to the impossibility of ever ethically representing the female sphere in its entirety. Through this demonstration, the poet/playwright considers the complexity of languaging a salvific philosophy of feminine beauty and, ironically, moves toward more ethical ways of representing feminist aesthetics . Tracing Clarke's visioning and revisioning of the female muse from his first book of poetry to he more recent verse play, 1 demonstrate how Clarke's poetics tell us something about how language may be used to enslave others as well as how it may be ethically recuperated to break the tyranny of such chains, to speak for those who have been disenfranchised. ABBREVIATI ONS AbfD SPMBOLS USED Where deemed appropriate, 1 have abbreviated certain texts as follows : Saltwater Spirituaïs and Deeper Blues - SSDB Whylah Falls - WF Lush Dreams, Blue Exile - LDBE Beatrice Chancy - BC vii 1 am indebted to my colleagues of Tanadian Literature: Re/Writing History," and especially to the instructor, ~cythesis - supervisor, Dr. A. ~aineight. The many provocative discussions we have held about the ethics of aesthetics and the aesthetics of ethics have challenged me to investigate the complexity of languaging female beauty . 1 benef ited greatly from many verbal and nitten exchanges with Kim Solga, Brian Johnson and Melanie Morasutti, who al1 read parts of this work, and who sustained me through the multiple stages of writing this thesis. 1 also acknowledge my second reader, Dr. P. Monk, and my third reader, Dr. J. Baxter, for their insightful evaluations of my manuscript. 1 owe a considerable debt to Dr. Marilyn Rose and Dr. Elizabeth Sauer for their encouragement and for their support of my academic endeavours. Special thanks go to Jarret Hardie for his technical skills and for his energetic support in seeing this thesis go to Dalhousie Graduate Studies for binding. I would also like to thank the Dalhousie Department of English for providing me with a Graduate Scholarship and this opponunity to pursue my interests in Canadian literature. 1 would like to extend a very special thank-you to Dr. George Elliott Clarke for inspiring me as an academic and pet, for graciously providing me with copies of his forthcoming work, for aiding me in my research of African-Canadian literatures, and most of all, for his poetics that bear witness to such beauty. viii Introduction In the beginning was the word, and the word was the life force. African Philosophy The prim;iry function of writing, as a means of communication,is to facilitate the enslavement of other human beings. Levi Strauss, Tristes Tropiques 1 know that this traitor language can turn One truth into another or even Against itself . Yet, it is al1 we have. George Elliott Clarke, Whylah Falls Witnessing the Evolution of 'the word' This thesis examines George Elliott Clarke's representations of female beauty in Saltwater Spirituals and Deeper Blues, Whylah Falls, Lush Dreams, Blues Exile and Beatrice chancyl within the contexts of African and Western traditions of representing the female muse, and the recent concern in the academy for an ethical criticism. In his poetics, Clarke utilizes the full range of cultural resources available and scholar English literature; Clarke interweaves a variety of genres, voices, and dramatic and discursive exchanges that resist the "cultural detacination" of the "Canadian landscape ." Through their critical visioning and revisioning of the female muse, Clarke's texts enter into a constructive "dialogic relationshipw (Henderson 162) with rivalling aesthetics of the beautiful, with the Genesis story and its received bibilical and literary traditions, as well as with historical accounts of the enslavement of Blacks in Canada. In witnessing the impossibility of our "traitor laquagew to fully represent the female muse outside of a complex matrix of "intersubjective ~iolence,"~Clarke's meta-poetics direct our attention to the complexity of 'languaging' female beauty, and to our ethical responsibility as linguistic beings. Although Clarke's liberating philosophy of female beauty, at times, reinscribes certain totalizing concepts of women, its ceaseless revisioning also articulates a resistance to its own violence and demonstrates that there are "ethical" ways in which our "traitor language" can be used to bear witness to the beauty "that once existed in invisiblity . " In traditional belief , the muse was a goddess who possessed the male poet. One of the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, she presided over poetry, Song, drama, dancing, and astronomy, and played an important role in the creative process. But it is a role that has been rather dangerously turned "against itselfwin the dominant visionings of the muse throughout the centuries. In the many patriarchal readings of the muse, the goddess had corne to be celebrated not so much for her agency or for her control over "the -rdw or the "life force,w6 but for her idyllic beauty, for her "duty" to gratify male desire, or for her ability to be possessed by the male penning-pet. Such patriarchal readings of the muse often risk reducing the female goddess to an object of the male-pet's authoritarian linguistic gaze. Clarke ' s poetics reverse such oppressive visionings of the female muse in rather interestdg ways. Clarke is indebted to an African-American tradition that posits a muse-like quality in the female subject who is responsible for inspiring male-blues artists to Song and for uplifting the spirits of her race (Carby 74). The female muse for Clarke, then, is never solely the goddess who possesses the male-poet that we f ind in classical traditions, nor the beautified object which is possessed by the male-poet that we find in patriarchal readings, but a complex, multi-faceted female subject. It is imperative to explore Clarke ' s texts for their critical visioning and revisioning of the female muse, as so much of the poet's "coming intoV7of the beauty of Africadia, of process, of language, and of exile is contingent upon a return to, or inhabiting of, a " female" space, a "ferninine" and "ethical" way of looking and becoming. The male-poetfs process of returning to a matriarchal sphere is emphasized in Mhylah Falls and Lush Dreams, Blue Exile. The failure of "Xavierw in Whylah Falls and of the pilgrim-poet in Lush Dreams, Blue Exile is associated with their inability to "think ethically" about the complexity of languaging fernale beauty and is represented as a fa11 from the materna1 sphere into the patriarchal symbolic order. In ontological and epistemological te-, Clarke, in these works , adopts the allegory of textualization to explain the limits of our fallen language and the existence of racial oppression in our world. The allegory also serves the purpose of proclaiming our ethical existance-that is, it conveys how we, as textual beings, can make choices to liberate ourselves from the tyranny of monolithic constructions of Truth," "Beauty," and "The Word." Furthemore, the allegory also directs our attention to a cornplex, multivocal, and ancient African matriarchal tradition that celebrates an ethical relationship to beauty and to language. What emerges from a black aesthetic is an understanding that the "beautifulw is always a personal, fluid category expressed through a language characterized by its "unlimited play," (8.
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