Genre and the self: some reflections on the poetics and politics of the fils de Csaire

Amongst the contemporary French-Caribbean writers who appear to see themselves as heirs to the Martiniquan poet/politician Aim Csaire, certain writers of the younger generation Patrick Chamoiseau and Raphal Confiant in particular tend to base their reservations, if not their outright hostility towards the figure of Csaire on a negative view of the political tenor of Csaire's poetics. Whereas douard Glissant seems to hold to the middle ground, expressing respectful distance from his precursor's vision, the writers of the crolit movement reject Csaire's poetics, no less than his politics. Their negative perspective on Csaire's writing is based not just on a certain view of the French language as inherently exclusive and oppressive, but also on a certain conceptualization of poetry as a genre. More specifically, their representation (and rejection) of poetry, and of Csaire's poetry in particular, is motivated by a commitment to the Creole language and to oraliture, and above all by their determination to give voice to the highly differentiated collective Caribbean experience. However, the question concerning the different way that Csaire's poetry (as opposed to Glissant's, or Confiant's or Chamoiseau's novels) mediates the relation between the singular self and the collective voice is a highly complex one, as is the question concerning the political value of that mediation and, indeed, of that relation. At the heart of that difficult question, which is partly a question of genre, lies the politically and ethically sensitive matter of the relation between writing and the subject.