MYTH AND HISTORY IN THE NOVELS OF ALEJO CARPENTIER AND WILSON HARRIS: THEORIES OF CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION (CUBA, GUYANA)

The purpose of this study is to examine the interaction of myth and history in the works of Alejo Carpentier and Wilson Harris within the context of the Caribbean writer's attempt to re-define the poetics of the novel. The analysis of this relationship is divided into three parts: (1) the role of marvelous realism in the development of the Caribbean novel and the concept of myth as a historical mode, (2) the problematic quest for cultural identity within the framework of the process of mythopoesis, and (3) the dialectics of culture in the two writers' notions of history and the ludic conception of the novel.;Myth and history are generally viewed as contradictory modes: myth relegated to the realm of ahistorical transcendence and history to the "prison" of documentary realism. The basic premise of this study is that the notion of an antagonistic relationship between myth and history represents a false dichotomy. Wilson Harris proposes a revolution in the novel based on a philosophy of history that takes into account the "subconscious imagination" of the West Indian people. For both Harris and Carpentier, the creative roots of the past are the myths and legends that arose from the clash of Amerindian, African and European cultures in the New World. In their novels the alchemical process of recreation related to the myths and folk traditions of the New World is the corollary of the creative process in the arts. Although concrete historical experience informs the mythic elements of the novels of both writers, they hold radically different views about the nature of history. For Harris, history is the negative pole of the "spiral of re-discovery and creativity"; whereas, Carpentier sees a positive relationship between myth and history in the spiral of creative transformation. Nevertheless, the novels of both Carpentier and Harris illustrate the dialectics of culture in the process of literary creation.