John Dryden describes Thomas Southerne as “pure” in reference to the purity of his language, and ... more John Dryden describes Thomas Southerne as “pure” in reference to the purity of his language, and Alexander Pope delineates Southerne in his “Epistle to Augustus” as an “elderly dramatist skilled in expressing ‘the passions’” and cites him along with Johnson, Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Wycherley, and Rowe as great English playwrights” (qtd. in Kaufman 10). However, not many critics are that generous to Southerne, the only playwright courageous enough to bring a black face on to the English theater in 1695, except Shakespeare who did it with Othello in 1603. The best position critics rank Southerne, author of ten plays, is as the sixth best playwright in English Restoration Theatre. Probably, because of the parasite formula that was in vogue in the 17th century when Southerne wrote Oronooko and which he profoundly capitalized on to write his most famous play, he is not particularly regarded as one of the ingenious playwrights of his era. At best, many critics regard Southern...
Alice Walker’s novel, Possessing the Secret of Joy shares some similarities with many texts writt... more Alice Walker’s novel, Possessing the Secret of Joy shares some similarities with many texts written by black Americans, but it is uniquely different because its settings include an African village where the story begins. The novel is rich in intertextuality as it engages other great American authors like W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, feminist bell hooks; and Austrian psychoanalytical theorist, Carl Jung. Beside its psychoanalytical framework and story-telling pattern with multiple narrators, Possessing the Secret of Joy is also grounded in Louis Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) and Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) theories, as well as in Antonio Gramsci’s hegemony theory.1 These theories exemplify themselves in the way the protagonist in the novel is convinced to succumb to genital mutilation and how a journey into herself to remember long-repressed memories, eventually results in her ability to liberate women of her village. Possessing the...
Although many critics see Richard Wright’s Native Son as an American classic novel, it is by no m... more Although many critics see Richard Wright’s Native Son as an American classic novel, it is by no means a master narrative that attempts to provide a mega solution to the problems of the black man in American society. Instead, Wright uses the novel to protest against the naturalistic conditions that emasculate a young black man, Bigger Thomas, in 1930s Chicago to commit two murders, one accidentally and the other by design, for which he is sentenced to die. In his poem, “A Dream Deferred,” Langston Hughes poses a mind-bogglingly critical question: “What Happens to a Dream Deferred?” Thomas, the disturbed protagonist in Wright’s Native Son, has an ambition of becoming a pilot, but fear effaces Thomas’s dream of a better future for him and his mother and presumably, defers his dream to a future date. However, his dream turns into a nightmare, and instead of a pilot, he becomes a cold-blooded murderer. The tension between hope and fear, optimism and pessimism in Thomas is a stark antino...
John Dryden describes Thomas Southerne as “pure” in reference to the purity of his language, and ... more John Dryden describes Thomas Southerne as “pure” in reference to the purity of his language, and Alexander Pope delineates Southerne in his “Epistle to Augustus” as an “elderly dramatist skilled in expressing „the passions‟” and cites him along with Johnson, Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Wycherley, and Rowe as great English playwrights” (qtd. in Kaufman 10). However, not many critics are that generous to Southerne, the only playwright courageous enough to bring a black face on to the English theater in 1695, except Shakespeare who did it with Othello in 1603. The best position critics rank Southerne, author of ten plays, is as the sixth best playwright in English Restoration Theatre. Probably, because of the parasite formula that was in vogue in the 17th century when Southerne wrote Oronooko and which he profoundly capitalized on to write his most famous play, he is not particularly regarded as one of the ingenious playwrights of his era. At best, many critics regard Southerne...
Knowledge is the beacon that illuminates dark alleys of ignorance to provide us with the key to u... more Knowledge is the beacon that illuminates dark alleys of ignorance to provide us with the key to unlock doors to a world full of bright visions and promises. With knowledge, our humanity is aroused with impassioned zeal and rooted in a firm ground to enable us to help others reach their full potentials. Knowledge helps us transcend the human rustiness that comes with crudity and lack of sensibility and replaces it with compassion, understanding, and forgiveness. I dedicate this dissertation to all those who through their munificent acts of encouragement helped me to realize my ambition of earning a doctorate degree. I particularly efficient secretaries in the Department of English; Dr. Sandra Shannon and Dr. Nkonko Kamwangamalu, formerly director of the Graduate Program who counseled me never to quit in spite of the hiccoughs. My regards also go to Dr. Jeff Westover, formerly of the English Department, Ms. Crystal Duncan, who always provided me with assistance regarding my remission of tuition, irrespective of how tardy I was with my application, Mr. Brian Johnson and Ms. Melody Morales of Financial Aid, and last but not least, to my wife, Cecilia and my children, Adelaide, Ronald, and Eleanor, who challenged me invariably to ensure that I not only stayed the course but also completed the journey. I have come to the end of one journey with this dissertation, but it is also the beginning of another journey that I have accepted and hope to excel on it as well, by the Grace of God. Once again, I thank you all. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A dissertation informed by the fiction and non-fiction of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois is certainly an ambitious project because of the many diverse topics and issues that garnered his attention in his life time. Although this dissertation focuses mainly on the novels of Du Bois, it has, nevertheless, proven to be an ambitious undertaking as I delved into hitherto uncharted waters in dissertation projects with the use of cosmopolitanism in deconstructing his fiction. My hope is that in such an undertaking, I have made an invaluable contribution to existing scholarship on W.E.B. Du Bois. As a result, I like to express my appreciation to my Committee members for the expert manner in which they guided me as I worked on my project. ABSTRACT Although Du Bois's vast expanse of scholarship resonates with critical themes of cosmopolitanism in his texts, the majority of cosmopolitan theorists refrain from any extended treatment of him in critical book-length studies. Paul Gilroy, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ross Posnock, Charles Briggs, Ifideoma Kiddoe Nwankwo, and Nico Slate, among others, have addressed Du Bois's treatises with the lenses of cosmopolitanism. However, this dissertation is not just an argument on one aspect of cosmopolitanism, but its argument on cosmopolitanism details an understanding of cosmopolitanism in Du Bois's fiction as evolving from universal humanism to discrepant and black. Chapter One of the dissertation proposes that The Quest of the Silver Fleece is grounded in Western Enlightenment tradition, which is informed by universal cosmopolitan humanism. Chapter Two examines discrepant cosmopolitanism in Dark Princess: A Romance and suggests that there is an evolution in Du Bois's world view because of World War I and colonialism, necessitating a dislocation of the West as central to cosmopolitanism in the novel. Chapter Three analyzes The Black Flame with the lenses of black cosmopolitanism, with Du Bois effectively combining history and fiction to tell the story of the African American experience from the end of Reconstruction in 1876 to 1954. Pan-African and Pan-Asian ideals undergird the black cosmopolitan framework of the trilogy. Chapter Four interrogates Du Bois's intellectual influences outside America and Europe and focuses on his intellectual and political influences in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean and how those influences helped shape his utopian desire for an inimitable colored world in which equality and justice could prevail to all through the lenses of cosmopolitanism. In the Epilogue, Kwame Nkrumah and Barack Obama become purveyors of Du Boisian cosmopolitan ideals after Du Bois's death in 1963. The dissertation vi
John Dryden describes Thomas Southerne as “pure” in reference to the purity of his language, and ... more John Dryden describes Thomas Southerne as “pure” in reference to the purity of his language, and Alexander Pope delineates Southerne in his “Epistle to Augustus” as an “elderly dramatist skilled in expressing ‘the passions’” and cites him along with Johnson, Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Wycherley, and Rowe as great English playwrights” (qtd. in Kaufman 10). However, not many critics are that generous to Southerne, the only playwright courageous enough to bring a black face on to the English theater in 1695, except Shakespeare who did it with Othello in 1603. The best position critics rank Southerne, author of ten plays, is as the sixth best playwright in English Restoration Theatre. Probably, because of the parasite formula that was in vogue in the 17th century when Southerne wrote Oronooko and which he profoundly capitalized on to write his most famous play, he is not particularly regarded as one of the ingenious playwrights of his era. At best, many critics regard Southern...
Alice Walker’s novel, Possessing the Secret of Joy shares some similarities with many texts writt... more Alice Walker’s novel, Possessing the Secret of Joy shares some similarities with many texts written by black Americans, but it is uniquely different because its settings include an African village where the story begins. The novel is rich in intertextuality as it engages other great American authors like W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, William Faulkner, feminist bell hooks; and Austrian psychoanalytical theorist, Carl Jung. Beside its psychoanalytical framework and story-telling pattern with multiple narrators, Possessing the Secret of Joy is also grounded in Louis Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) and Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) theories, as well as in Antonio Gramsci’s hegemony theory.1 These theories exemplify themselves in the way the protagonist in the novel is convinced to succumb to genital mutilation and how a journey into herself to remember long-repressed memories, eventually results in her ability to liberate women of her village. Possessing the...
Although many critics see Richard Wright’s Native Son as an American classic novel, it is by no m... more Although many critics see Richard Wright’s Native Son as an American classic novel, it is by no means a master narrative that attempts to provide a mega solution to the problems of the black man in American society. Instead, Wright uses the novel to protest against the naturalistic conditions that emasculate a young black man, Bigger Thomas, in 1930s Chicago to commit two murders, one accidentally and the other by design, for which he is sentenced to die. In his poem, “A Dream Deferred,” Langston Hughes poses a mind-bogglingly critical question: “What Happens to a Dream Deferred?” Thomas, the disturbed protagonist in Wright’s Native Son, has an ambition of becoming a pilot, but fear effaces Thomas’s dream of a better future for him and his mother and presumably, defers his dream to a future date. However, his dream turns into a nightmare, and instead of a pilot, he becomes a cold-blooded murderer. The tension between hope and fear, optimism and pessimism in Thomas is a stark antino...
John Dryden describes Thomas Southerne as “pure” in reference to the purity of his language, and ... more John Dryden describes Thomas Southerne as “pure” in reference to the purity of his language, and Alexander Pope delineates Southerne in his “Epistle to Augustus” as an “elderly dramatist skilled in expressing „the passions‟” and cites him along with Johnson, Shakespeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, Wycherley, and Rowe as great English playwrights” (qtd. in Kaufman 10). However, not many critics are that generous to Southerne, the only playwright courageous enough to bring a black face on to the English theater in 1695, except Shakespeare who did it with Othello in 1603. The best position critics rank Southerne, author of ten plays, is as the sixth best playwright in English Restoration Theatre. Probably, because of the parasite formula that was in vogue in the 17th century when Southerne wrote Oronooko and which he profoundly capitalized on to write his most famous play, he is not particularly regarded as one of the ingenious playwrights of his era. At best, many critics regard Southerne...
Knowledge is the beacon that illuminates dark alleys of ignorance to provide us with the key to u... more Knowledge is the beacon that illuminates dark alleys of ignorance to provide us with the key to unlock doors to a world full of bright visions and promises. With knowledge, our humanity is aroused with impassioned zeal and rooted in a firm ground to enable us to help others reach their full potentials. Knowledge helps us transcend the human rustiness that comes with crudity and lack of sensibility and replaces it with compassion, understanding, and forgiveness. I dedicate this dissertation to all those who through their munificent acts of encouragement helped me to realize my ambition of earning a doctorate degree. I particularly efficient secretaries in the Department of English; Dr. Sandra Shannon and Dr. Nkonko Kamwangamalu, formerly director of the Graduate Program who counseled me never to quit in spite of the hiccoughs. My regards also go to Dr. Jeff Westover, formerly of the English Department, Ms. Crystal Duncan, who always provided me with assistance regarding my remission of tuition, irrespective of how tardy I was with my application, Mr. Brian Johnson and Ms. Melody Morales of Financial Aid, and last but not least, to my wife, Cecilia and my children, Adelaide, Ronald, and Eleanor, who challenged me invariably to ensure that I not only stayed the course but also completed the journey. I have come to the end of one journey with this dissertation, but it is also the beginning of another journey that I have accepted and hope to excel on it as well, by the Grace of God. Once again, I thank you all. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A dissertation informed by the fiction and non-fiction of Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois is certainly an ambitious project because of the many diverse topics and issues that garnered his attention in his life time. Although this dissertation focuses mainly on the novels of Du Bois, it has, nevertheless, proven to be an ambitious undertaking as I delved into hitherto uncharted waters in dissertation projects with the use of cosmopolitanism in deconstructing his fiction. My hope is that in such an undertaking, I have made an invaluable contribution to existing scholarship on W.E.B. Du Bois. As a result, I like to express my appreciation to my Committee members for the expert manner in which they guided me as I worked on my project. ABSTRACT Although Du Bois's vast expanse of scholarship resonates with critical themes of cosmopolitanism in his texts, the majority of cosmopolitan theorists refrain from any extended treatment of him in critical book-length studies. Paul Gilroy, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Ross Posnock, Charles Briggs, Ifideoma Kiddoe Nwankwo, and Nico Slate, among others, have addressed Du Bois's treatises with the lenses of cosmopolitanism. However, this dissertation is not just an argument on one aspect of cosmopolitanism, but its argument on cosmopolitanism details an understanding of cosmopolitanism in Du Bois's fiction as evolving from universal humanism to discrepant and black. Chapter One of the dissertation proposes that The Quest of the Silver Fleece is grounded in Western Enlightenment tradition, which is informed by universal cosmopolitan humanism. Chapter Two examines discrepant cosmopolitanism in Dark Princess: A Romance and suggests that there is an evolution in Du Bois's world view because of World War I and colonialism, necessitating a dislocation of the West as central to cosmopolitanism in the novel. Chapter Three analyzes The Black Flame with the lenses of black cosmopolitanism, with Du Bois effectively combining history and fiction to tell the story of the African American experience from the end of Reconstruction in 1876 to 1954. Pan-African and Pan-Asian ideals undergird the black cosmopolitan framework of the trilogy. Chapter Four interrogates Du Bois's intellectual influences outside America and Europe and focuses on his intellectual and political influences in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean and how those influences helped shape his utopian desire for an inimitable colored world in which equality and justice could prevail to all through the lenses of cosmopolitanism. In the Epilogue, Kwame Nkrumah and Barack Obama become purveyors of Du Boisian cosmopolitan ideals after Du Bois's death in 1963. The dissertation vi
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