Whose Paradise?: Imperialism and the Black Experience in the Poetry of Nicolás Guillén
2011; Volume: 30; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2327-9648
Autores Tópico(s)Latin American and Latino Studies
ResumoFrom the early period of conquest and colonization, the Caribbean has been interpreted as an edenic space, replete with precious natural resources, available simply for the taking. Upon his arrival in Cuba in 1492, Christopher Columbus commented, Everything I saw was so lovely that my eyes could not weary of beholding such beauty... It is certain that where there is such marvelous scenery, must be much from which profit can be made ... I believe that. . . there are very great riches and precious stones and spices (qtd. in Perez 21-22).The success of the sixteenth century conquistadores in acquiring gold and silver from the region with which the economies of Spain and her continental neighbours were fueled led to a journey en masse by European citizens yearning to enter and possess a piece of paradise. The European conquistador/colonizer saw himself as the new Adam whose divine duty was to establish a socio-economic and political structure by which to dominate, exploit, and consume the natural resources that lay within the paradisiacal and virgin spaces of the Americas and the Caribbean.The economic boom and political supremacy that Spain and her continental neighbors experienced during the period were due to the large-scale extraction of the various readily available commodities. However, it was not long before these commodities were depleted and the native population decimated as a result of being brutally coerced into becoming the newcomer's labor force. Faced with this grim reality, the colonizer realized that the myth he had constructed of paradise on earth was beginning to fade. In order to sustain such a myth, he resorted to the institution of the plantation, which became the chief machinery of wealth and power. The success of this sedentary economy was predicated upon a permanent and dependent labor force, since the colonizer did not envision himself engaging in the arduous telluric activities associated with this new enterprise. Forced labor from the African continent became a viable solution and for over four centuries, plantation as paradise was the dominant view held throughout much of the New World.In this article, I examine how the paradise imaginary was sustained through the creation of an Adamic space in Cuba, which was highly dependent upon an ongoing exploitative relationship between the European colonizers and the African slaves. Through an in-depth analysis of selected poems by renowned Cuban poet Nicolas Guillen, I will show how paradise is synonymous with hell, as it relates to the African slaves whose primary duty was to keep the myth alive even at the cost of their own lives. These poems are of universal value as their content can be applied to the so-called edenic locations within the Caribbean and beyond.I will also examine the paradisiacal cornerstone of imperialism/neoimperialism in relation to the collective Cuban experience during the late nineteenth to mid twentieth century at the hands of the United States of America. Finally, I will discuss how in response to the fragmented paradise that had been carved out within the Cuban landscape by the colonizer/neo-colonizer, Guillen sketches an alternative version of paradise, which stems from his ideological/political involvement within the Cuban revolutionary state during the second half of the twentieth century.Since much of the poet's work is saturated with historical data surrounding the evolutionary process of Cuban society, I will use extra-literary sources that I believe are pertinent in fully understanding the messages conveyed in the poems, which are drawn from the collections West Indies, Ltd. (1934), Son entero (1947), Elegias (1948-58), and Tengo (1964).For over four centuries the Cuban geographical landscape had been redesigned to accommodate a plantation system that was geared toward the long-term extraction of wealth on the part of the European colonizer/planter. Sugar became the new gold within this staged paradise, and labourers from the African continent forcibly undertook its production. …
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