Shakespeare in the Caribbean

Folger Shakespeare Library: Shakespeare Unlimited

Folger Shakespeare Library

Arts

4.8 • 878 Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2015

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Shakespeare and his plays are woven deeply into the culture of the Caribbean, both white and black. Even after centuries of British colonial rule came to an end, Shakespeare endured, as we hear in this episode of Shakespeare Unlimited. There’s a long tradition in the British Caribbean of using Shakespeare quotations in competitions to demonstrate rhetorical skill, whether in the schoolyard or at rural village gatherings. After slavery was abolished in the British colonies, schools were established to steep the empire’s newest subjects in British literature, particularly Shakespeare, imparting British values along the way. But anti-colonialists have also claimed Shakespeare for their own, particularly THE TEMPEST and the character of Caliban. Our guests on this episode are Dr. Giselle Rampaul, a lecturer in Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine, Trinidad, and Dr. Barrymore A. Bogues, Director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University. They are interviewed by Neva Grant. From the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. © November 4, 2015. Folger Shakespeare Library. All rights reserved. “A Vision Of This Island” was produced by Richard Paul. Garland Scott is the associate producer. It was edited by Gail Kern Paster and Esther Ferington. We had help from Melissa Marquis at NPR in Washington, Courtney Coelho at Brown University, and Kerri Chandler at Wiluvbeats Studios in Barataria, Trinidad. We also want to say a special “thank you” to Fabienne Viala, a professor in the school of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick in the UK. Early on in our research on this topic, Dr. Viala was uncommonly generous in offering her time and her deep understanding of this history. She also introduced us to Giselle Rampaul.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited.
0:03.8	I'm Michael Whitmore, the Folgers director.
0:06.3	This podcast is called A Vision of This Island.
0:10.1	When Britain's House of Commons abolished slavery in much of the British Empire on July 26, 1833,
0:17.1	their action presented a considerable challenge in the British West Indies.
0:26.6	Up until that day, hundreds of thousands of Africans enslaved on the islands of the Caribbean had been treated no better than cattle.
0:28.6	Now, somehow, they were to be converted into loyal British subjects.
0:33.6	As you'll hear, Shakespeare's plays had been performed in the Caribbean for 200 years at the time of emancipation,
0:40.3	and were already woven deeply into the fabric of black and white culture on the islands.
0:46.3	So it's not surprising that he was used not only by the colonizers, but also later by the nationalists
0:52.3	who bent his characters and messages to their mission.
0:56.0	To talk about the deep but little known history of Shakespeare in the Caribbean,
1:00.0	we've invited in two of the handful of people who know about it.
1:04.0	Dr. Giselle Rampal is a lecturer in Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies in St. Augustine, Trinidad.
1:11.6	And Dr. Barrymore A. Bogues is Director of the Center for the Study of Slavery and Justice at Brown University.
1:18.6	Giselle and Tony are interviewed by Neva Grant.
1:22.6	In researching this segment, you told us so many fascinating ways that Shakespeare has sort of meandered his way into the life of the British Caribbean.
1:31.2	So, Giselle, how did Shakespeare even begin to make his way into the British Caribbean?
1:37.2	I mean, it happened fairly soon, even after his death, right?
1:40.9	Because the British were already there in that part of the world.
1:45.0	Yes, I think that's true. Shakespeare came with the British. The British, of course,
1:50.0	a lot of the Caribbean islands were colonized by the British in the 1600s, and they did bring a lot of their cultural practices.
	...

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