eBook

Caribbean Middlebrow

Edmondson, Belinda

2009

Overview

It is commonly assumed that Caribbean culture is split into elite highbrow culture-which is considered derivative of Europe and not rooted in the Caribbean-and authentic working-class culture, which is often identified with such iconic island activities as salsa, carnival, calypso, and reggae. InCaribbean Middlebrow, Belinda Edmondson recovers a middle ground, a genuine popular culture in the English-speaking Caribbean that stretches back into the nineteenth century. Edmondson shows that popular novels, beauty pageants, and music festivals are examples of Caribbean culture that are mostly created, maintained, and consumed by the Anglophone middle class. Much of middle-class culture, she finds, is further gendered as \"female\": women are more apt to be considered recreational readers of fiction, for example, and women's behavior outside the home is often taken as a measure of their community's respectability. Edmondson also highlights the influence of American popular culture, especially African American popular culture, as early as the nineteenth century. This is counter to the notion that the islands were exclusively under the sway of British tastes and trends. She finds the origins of today's \"dub\" or spoken-word Jamaican poetry in earlier traditions of genteel dialect poetry-as exemplified by the work of the Jamaican folklorist, actress, and poet Louise \"Miss Lou\" Bennett Coverley-and considers the impact of early Caribbean novels, includingEmmanuel Appadocca(1853) andJane's Career(1913).

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Subject: Blacks / Blacks -- Race identity -- Caribbean Area / Books and reading / Books and reading -- Caribbean Area / Caribbean & Latin American / Caribbean Area / Caribbean Area -- Civilization / Caribbean literature (English) / Caribbean literature (English) -- History and criticism / Civilization / History and criticism / Language & Literature / LITERARY CRITICISM / Literature and society / Literature and society -- Caribbean Area / Middle class / Middle class -- Caribbean Area / Popular culture / Popular culture -- Caribbean Area / Popular literature / Popular literature -- Caribbean Area -- History and criticism / Race identity / Race in literature / Social classes in literature
• ISBN: 9780801448140, 080144814X