Tropical Paradise Lost and Regained: The poetic protest and prophecy of Edward Brathwaite, Claire Harris, Olive Senior, and David Dabydeen

摘要

This dissertation examines the poetry of four Caribbean poets: Edward Brathwaite, Claire Harris, Olive Senior, and David Dabydeen. A presentation of the background issues which shape their voices of protest and prophecy, stemming from the colonization of the Caribbean region, governs the discussion. While the African ancestry of the poets Brathwaite, Harris, and Senior provides the cohesion of this critical analysis, Dabydeen, of East Indian ancestry, fits within the matrix of this analysis due to the thematic centering of his poetry on the issues of dislocation and dispossession surrounding the colonization of the Caribbean region. This analysis is organized into six chapters. Chapter One, the introduction, presents a historical overview ofthe Caribbean region and the scope of this dissertation. Chapters Two through Five are devoted to an analysis of selected works of each poet. Finally, Chapter Six synthesizes the powerful notes of protest and prophecy sounded by each of these poets in their quest for a home which empowers and embraces its people, a Paradise Regained.