Jason Herbeck
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781786940391
- eISBN:
- 9781786944948
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781786940391.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
As a complement to the in-depth literary analyses that follow, Chapter 1 begins by examining a bona fide architectural structure, the Haitian gingerbread house, as a literal—i.e. ...
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As a complement to the in-depth literary analyses that follow, Chapter 1 begins by examining a bona fide architectural structure, the Haitian gingerbread house, as a literal—i.e. physical—manifestation of authentic French-Caribbean construction. Drawing from both (past) traditional techniques and present-day technologies and innovations, the Gingerbreads’ vernacular architecture is described as a fundamentally localized, transformative building process that, for the purposes of this book, equate with what can be understood as the vernacular architexture of the French Caribbean. Hence, the recent “spatial turn” (Conley) in literary criticism should encompass not only natural but human landscapes in so far as their integral role as characters in the telling and creating of the region’s identifying narratives. Consequently, three brief textual analyses of French-Caribbean works serve to illustrate how the construction of individual and collective identities is informed by the architectural and architextual structures found within literature. The chapter concludes with an overview of relevant literary criticism, in particular as pertaining to the role of literary form in the evolving fields of spatial and postcolonial theory.Less
As a complement to the in-depth literary analyses that follow, Chapter 1 begins by examining a bona fide architectural structure, the Haitian gingerbread house, as a literal—i.e. physical—manifestation of authentic French-Caribbean construction. Drawing from both (past) traditional techniques and present-day technologies and innovations, the Gingerbreads’ vernacular architecture is described as a fundamentally localized, transformative building process that, for the purposes of this book, equate with what can be understood as the vernacular architexture of the French Caribbean. Hence, the recent “spatial turn” (Conley) in literary criticism should encompass not only natural but human landscapes in so far as their integral role as characters in the telling and creating of the region’s identifying narratives. Consequently, three brief textual analyses of French-Caribbean works serve to illustrate how the construction of individual and collective identities is informed by the architectural and architextual structures found within literature. The chapter concludes with an overview of relevant literary criticism, in particular as pertaining to the role of literary form in the evolving fields of spatial and postcolonial theory.
