Black Orpheus and Aesthetic Historicism

Authors

  • Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino Florida Atlantic University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/jffp.2011.495

Keywords:

Giambattista Vico, aesthetic historicism, Aime Cesaire, Jean-Paul Sartre, Negritude, Existential phenomenology, Francophone poets, Francophone poetry, Frantz Fanon, Leopold Sedar Senghor

Abstract

This essay offers a novel approach for understanding the poetry of negritude and its role in the struggle for black liberation by appealing to Giambattista Vico’s insights on the historical, cultural, and myth-making function of poetry and of the mythopoetic imagination.  The essay begins with a discussion of Vico’s aesthetic historicism and of his ideas regarding the role of imagination, poetry, and myth-making and then brings these ideas to bear on the discussion of the function of negritude poetry, focusing primarily on the writings of Aimé Césaire and on Jean-Paul Sartre’s essay, Black Orpheus.

Author Biography

Marina Paola Banchetti-Robino, Florida Atlantic University

Department of Philosophy

Associate Professor

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Published

2011-12-12