Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Bc. Zuzana Klímová The Cross-cultural Multidimensionality and Syncretic Interpretation of History in Wilson Harris’s Work Based on the Study of The Guyana Quartet Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A. 2010 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature 2 Acknowledgement I would like to thank prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A. and PhDr. Věra Pálenská, CSc. for their help and inspiration and to Doc. MUDr. Jan Klíma CSc. for his everlasting trust in my abilities. 3 Table of Contents 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 7 1.1 The Objective ................................................................................................................... 7 1.2 Basic Terms: Syncretic Interpretation, Multi-Dimensionality, Cross-culturality .......... 11 2. Syncretic Interpretation of History ....................................................................................... 16 2.1 Personal History: the Dimension of the Author as Individual ....................................... 16 2.2 The Dimension of Communal History and an Impact of the Western Historiography .. 24 2.3 Multidimensional Interpretation of History within the West Indian Context ................ 30 2.3.1 Defining History ...................................................................................................... 30 2.3.2 History as a Myth and ―the Subconscious Reality of the Caribbean Experience‖ .. 33 2.3.3 Harris‘s Syncretic Presentation of Multi-dimensional History in The Guyana Quartet ............................................................................................................................. 41 3. The Influence of the Multidimensional View on the Search for a New Form Suitable for the West Indian Expression – Refusal of Western Realism ........................................................... 45 4. The Cross-cultural Multidimensionality .............................................................................. 52 4.1 Historical Development and its Influence on the Cultural Tradition of the West Indies52 4.2 Pre-Columbian Dimension ............................................................................................. 56 4.3 Post-Columbian Dimension ........................................................................................... 62 4.3.1 European Tradition .................................................................................................. 63 4.3.2 Non-European Traditions ........................................................................................ 73 5. Cross-cultural Imagination as a Quest for Achieving Personal as well as Global Freedom 82 5.1 The Idea of Freedom Achievable Through Art .............................................................. 83 4 5.2 Archetypal Motif of ‗Quest‘ as an Image Capable of Reflecting the Cross-cultural Imagination ........................................................................................................................... 88 6. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 100 Summary ................................................................................................................................ 105 Resumé ................................................................................................................................... 106 Notes ....................................................................................................................................... 108 Bibliography: .......................................................................................................................... 113 5 The Cross-cultural Multidimensionality and Syncretic Interpretation of History in Wilson Harris‟s Work Based on the Study of The Guyana Quartet ―There is no economic solution to the ills of the world until the arts of originality […] open the partialities and biases of tradition in ways that address the very core of our pre- possessions.‖ Wilson Harris The Unfinished Genesis of the Imagination ―I want to make as clear as I can that a cleavage exists in my opinion between the historical convention in the Caribbean and Guianas and the arts of the imagination. I believe a philosophy of history may well lie buried in the arts of the imagination. Needless to say I have no racial biases, and whether my emphasis falls on limbo or vodun, on Carib bush-baby omens, on Arawak zemi, on Latin, English inheritances—in fact within and beyond these emphases—my concern is with epic strategems available to Caribbean man in the dilemmas of history which surround him.‖ Wilson Harris History, Fable and Myth in the Caribbean and Guianas 6 1. Introduction 1.1 The Objective Wilson Harris is a highly original and extremely productive Guyanese writer. The Guyana Quartet – the work of Wilson Harris that will be dealt with in the following text consists of four pieces of fiction. Namely Palace of the Peacock, The Far Journey of Oudin, The Whole Armour and The Secret Ladder. I chose this quartet of novels as a source for this thesis, because of its connection to history and culture of former British Guiana and because it was the first set of novels Harris wrote after his emigration to Great Britain. I think The Guyana Quartet makes a very useful source for study of the search for original literary form that was sought by many writers of postcolonial world. When I was trying to describe the Quartet by some simplifying terms I encountered an unexpected difficulty. The work of Wilson Harris is considered to be extremely complex and therefore considerably demanding for wider readership. It is often described as standing on the frontiers of acknowledged categories of literary and cultural studies. After a research on The Guyana Quartet itself and critical material concerned with Wilson Harris‘s work, I decided to focus on some of those frontiers he is said to occupy, challenge and break. I would like to give my attention especially to the most notable cultural boundaries challenged in the text, because as Harris says ―every boundary line is a myth‖ (Palace of the Peacock, 22). In connection to the cultural boundaries that occur in The Guyana Quartet I intend to consider the influence of history and its perception and interpretation which is inseparable from the cultural tradition in the way that they affect each other, because it is history that brings about different aspects of 7 culture and it is culture that forms our understanding and perception of history in a way that neither of the two concepts could be fully understood if they were to be dealt with in isolation. Harris‘s texts are multi-layered. The author is able to deal with the topics in many dimensions simultaneously. He uses all kinds of boundaries which do exist at one level but can be crossed or erased completely in another dimension. The past, the present and the future are just one of the dimensions that are treated syncreticly. It is therefore possible to find in Harris‘s texts characters from different historical eras and places coexisting within the common imaginary space of the text and imagination. His work encompasses the influences from all over the world and yet it preserves its high originality and uniqueness. This characteristic is described by J.A.M. Bundy who defines the work of Harris as addressing the vulnerability of the age and identifying new areas of imaginative resources in the culture. He says that: ―Harris‘s literary art is a highly individual fusion of hidden traditions of the imagination, native cosmogonies, alchemy, dreams, quantum physics; parables of man in the living landscapes; the aboriginal religions and cultures of Central and south America; the great Western tradition; fables of history and society; Jungian archetypes; hypotheses on time and space, and much else‖ (Bundy, 1). One of my aims is to try to interpret the multidimensionality of the text of The Guyana Quartet with its possible implications as a specific kind of fictional art reflecting the position of the author himself as well as the legacy of the culture and society he inherits. What I see as a vital characteristic of the text in question is, that it is the interpretation of the multidimensionality of The Guyana Quartet based on my reading and long-term study of the text with the full awareness of the cultural bias and the lack of knowledge in some areas of post-colonial, colonial and pre-colonial culture 8 and history of the American continent that might have an effect on my judgement. However, being aware of these possible sources of misunderstanding on my side of the interpretation, I would like to make it an integral part of the reading and interpretation itself. Harris emphasises the importance of the intuition and subjectivity within the life of a creative person and therefore I would like to use this approach as one of the arguments against the application of principal European theories and concentrate instead on the use of individual interpretations of Harris‘s work by authors such as Hena Maes- Jelinek, Samuel Durrant, Fred D‘Aguiar, Selwyn R. Cudjoe, Michael Gilkes, Kenneth Ramchard or Louis James