Resistance, revolution and liberation in selected works by the Afro-Cuban poet, Jesús Cos Causse

Abstract

This study critically interrogates the poetry of the Afro-Cuban writer Jesús Cos Causse in how he extends the meaning of revolution in the Caribbean beyond a sudden and radical change in social and political power. Through theories of revolutionary violence, cultural hybridity and an investigation into the milieu of writings in post-1959 revolutionary Cuba, this study proposes a concept of revolution that delineates liberation on psychological, spiritual, individual, cultural and national levels among the maroons, slave insurgents and fallen heroes of the Cuban Revolution. A number of theoretical and meta-critical frames are used to read the poetry of Jesús Cos Causse and establish a multi-faceted use of the concept in Caribbean revolutionary poetics. Within this broad project of the study to extend the deployment of revolution in the Caribbean, Frantz Fanon’s definition of revolution as violence ascertains liberation on a psychological level through the use of psychic violence. In a paradigmatic shift from revolutionary violence, Kamau Brathwaite’s theoretical framework of Caribbean creolisation resists psycho-cultural domination in a way of thinking that identifies, accepts and deploy cultural ambivalence and the revolutionary eruption of foundational African roots. Additionally, Paulette Ramsay’s phenomena of cultural and literary marronage are meta-critical frameworks for critically analysing the liberatory effect of African cultural retention in the Caribbean. Furthermore, revolutionaries in support of the Cuban Revolution, and particular a focus on the legacy of fallen heroes of the Cuban Revolution—poets and martyrs, typical of twentieth century Colloquial poetry—expands the meaning of revolution through Cos Causse’s poetic representation of heroism, nationalism and altruistic sacrifice. Irrefutably, the listed theoretical and meta-critical frames illuminate the revolutionary ways in which Cos Causse re-visits various acts of resistance among the maroons, slave insurgents and Cuban rebels that have been deemed unsuccessful in the fight against political and social oppression. Keywords: Aldean Kimar Ellis; Jesús Cos Causse; Revolution; Resistance; Liberation; Creolisation; Post-1959 Revolutionary Cuba; Cultural marronage; Literary marronage; Colloquial poetry; Fallen Heroes