5 research outputs found
Postcolonial tragic vision in Steve Chimombo's writing
No full textThe study argues that Steve Chimombo' s writing presents a cyclic tragic vision that negatively affirms and valorises human existence from a postcolonial standpoint. In a departure from aligning tragedy with Western literary tradition, the study explores an African writer's use and imagination of tragic philosophy and form to illuminate vernacular perspectives of human existence at cosmic and socio-political levels. The thesis is thus organised along two principles: political time and tragic themes. The discussion moves from writings that focus on colonialism, through post-independent dictatorship to the liberationist era under democracy in Malawian history. The chapter sequencing follows this order. Each chapter examines a different basis of Chimombo' s tragic vision. These areas range from the writer's political consciousness across a historical spectrum; his philosophy of human existence; and the specific conditions of women and writers under repression. I define postcolonial tragic vision; distinguish tragedy from the tragic; and place Chimombo in context. I then explore writer's mythologizing of colonialism within his vernacular cosmology and how he appropriates Western tragedy in writing back to a hegemonic discourse. I examine the making of tragedy and the tragic in order to interrogate the politics and poetics of tragedy. Elevating the debate to a philosophical plane, I further enquire into Chimombo's ontological conception of mankind as grounded in vernacular mythology and a politics of dictatorship. I posit Chimombo as a spokesperson of tragic sensibility using the chameleon metaphor and metapoesis as critical frameworks. Outside politics, I underpin sacrifice as an underlying formulation of tragedy in a society afflicted by HIV and AIDS, focusing on the tragic liberation of women. Then I ask what can be tragic about democracy and its liberationist promises.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo
