Geoffrey Chaucer - The Father of English Poetry

Geoffrey Chaucer – Life & Literary Evolution

Introduction: The Father of English Poetry

Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343–1400) stands as the cornerstone of English literature, a figure who transformed the vernacular into a medium of sophistication, humour, and profound humanity. His career, spanning diplomatic service, court appointments, and prolific writing, reflects the dynamic interplay between European influences and native innovation. This newsletter traces Chaucer’s development through his French, Italian, and English periods, highlighting the works that defined each phase.

The French Period: Courtly Foundations

• Early Influences: Chaucer’s upbringing in court circles immersed him in French language and literature, particularly the Roman de la Rose tradition.

• The Romaunt of the Rose: A partial translation of the French allegory, introducing the dream vision form and themes of courtly love.

• The Book of the Duchess (1369–74): An elegy for Blanche of Lancaster, employing the dream vision to explore grief, memory, and consolation. It showcases early mastery of rhyme royal and emotional depth.

• Stylistic Traits: This period is marked by formal elegance, allegorical conventions, and a focus on aristocratic sensibilities.

The Italian Period: Artistic Transformation

• Italian Journeys: Travels to Genoa and Florence (1372–73) exposed Chaucer to Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio, revolutionizing his narrative scope.

• The House of Fame (1379–80): A comic dream vision exploring the nature of reputation and storytelling, featuring a talkative eagle and Chaucerian self-mockery.

• The Parliament of Fowls (c. 1382): A Valentine’s Day dream allegory where birds debate love, blending philosophical inquiry with gentle satire.

• Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1382–85): Chaucer’s greatest complete poem, a tragic romance set during the Trojan War. It deepens Boccaccio’s Il Filostrato with psychological complexity, philosophical depth (via Boethius), and masterful use of rhyme royal.

• The Legend of Good Women (c. 1386–88): A prologue and series of saints’ lives of faithful women, written as a penance for portraying Criseyde’s infidelity. It pioneers the heroic couplet.

The English Period: The Canterbury Tales

• Magnum Opus: Begun around 1387, this unfinished collection of stories told by pilgrims to Canterbury represents the peak of Chaucer’s artistry.

• Framework: Thirty pilgrims meet at the Tabard Inn, with Harry Bailly as host, each telling tales to pass the journey.

• Genres Galore: The tales encompass romance, fabliau, sermon, beast fable, and saint’s life, showcasing Chaucer’s generic virtuosity.

• The General Prologue: A masterpiece of character sketching, using precise detail, irony, and social observation to create a “portrait gallery” of medieval England.

Chaucer’s Poetic Techniques and Innovations

• Rhyme Royal and Heroic Couplet: He perfected the seven-line rhyme royal stanza (ababbcc) and established the heroic couplet as a dominant English form.

• Ironic Persona: Chaucer often presents himself as a naïve narrator, creating ironic distance between author, narrator, and audience.

• Realism and Individuality: His characters are vividly particularized through physical details, speech patterns, and psychological nuance.

• Linguistic Legacy: He elevated the London dialect of Middle English into a literary language, blending native Anglo-Saxon words with French and Latin borrowings.

Legacy and Enduring Relevance

• “Father of English Literature”: Chaucer’s establishment of English as a serious literary language cannot be overstated.

• Humanist Vision: His works balance satire and sympathy, offering a comprehensive, humane portrait of human folly and aspiration.

• Influence on Later Writers: He inspired generations from the Scottish Chaucerians to Shakespeare, Dryden, and Wordsworth.

• Modern Scholarship: Chaucer studies remain a vibrant field, exploring his work’s historical, gendered, and postcolonial dimensions.

The Canterbury Tales – A Medieval Microcosm 

Introduction: The Road to Canterbury

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales is more than a collection of stories; it is a panoramic portrayal of late medieval English society. Through the device of a pilgrimage, Chaucer brings together characters from all estates—nobility, clergy, and commoners—each telling a tale that reflects their personality, values, and social station. This newsletter explores the General Prologue’s brilliant characterisation, the tales’ generic diversity, and the work’s overarching themes of fellowship, storytelling, and human nature.

The General Prologue: A Portrait Gallery

• The Pilgrimage Framework: Twenty-nine pilgrims gather at the Tabard Inn in Southwark, journeying to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury.

• Harry Bailly, the Host: The genial, boisterous innkeeper who proposes the tale-telling contest and acts as master of ceremonies.

• Chaucer’s Method: Characters are described through clothing, physical features, speech, and behaviour, often with subtle irony.

• The Three Estates: Chaucer presents a cross-section of society:

  • Nobility: The Knight, Squire, and Yeoman.

  • Clergy: The Prioress, Monk, Friar, Parson, and corrupt officials like the Summoner and Pardoner.

  • Commoners: The Wife of Bath, Miller, Reeve, Merchant, and others.

The Pilgrims: Ideals and Satire

• The Idealised Few: The Knight (chivalry), the Parson (true Christian piety), and the Plowman (hardworking virtue) are presented without irony, perhaps as nostalgic contrasts to a corrupt age.

• The Corrupt Clergy: The Monk, Friar, and Pardoner are satirised for worldliness, greed, and hypocrisy, reflecting contemporary anticlerical sentiment.

• The Rising Middle Class: Characters like the Wife of Bath (cloth-maker) and the five Guildsmen represent the growing economic and social power of the bourgeoisie.

• Chaucer Himself: The narrator presents himself as a shy, bookish observer, a pose that allows for ironic commentary.

The Tales: Genre and Theme

• The Knight’s Tale: A stately romance of love and rivalry between Palamon and Arcite, set in ancient Thebes.

• The Miller’s Tale: A raucous fabliau of adultery and trickery, triggering the “quitting” chain with the Reeve’s Tale.

• The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale: A bold defence of female sovereignty in marriage, blending autobiography and Arthurian folklore.

• The Pardoner’s Tale: A grim parable about greed, told by a hypocrite who openly admits his own corruption.

• The Nun’s Priest’s Tale: A beast fable of Chauntecleer the cock, combining philosophical musing with comic suspense.

The “Marriage Group” and Narrative Complexity

• Debating Matrimony: A sequence of tales (Wife of Bath, Clerk, Merchant, Franklin) explores power, patience, and sovereignty in marriage.

• The Franklin’s Conclusion: His tale of mutual “gentillesse” and trust offers a possible Chaucerian ideal for marital harmony.

• Nested Narratives: Tales respond to each other, creating a dialogic texture; pilgrims interrupt, quarrel, and comment on one another’s stories.

• Unfinished Masterpiece: Chaucer’s plan for 120 tales was never completed; the work ends with the Parson’s sermon and Chaucer’s retraction.

Literary Significance and Enduring Appeal

• Anthology of Medieval Genres: The work encapsulates romance, fabliau, sermon, exemplum, and beast fable.

• Irony and Ambiguity: Chaucer rarely moralises directly, leaving readers to navigate the gaps between what characters say and what they do.

• Linguistic Vitality: The Tales are a treasure trove of Middle English idioms, proverbs, and colloquial speech.

• A Mirror to Society: The pilgrimage becomes a metaphor for the human journey, with its mixture of comedy, pathos, sin, and redemption.

The Birth of English Comedy

Table of Contents

Newsletter No. 06 -  The Birth of English Comedy: From Church Miracles to Shakespeare's Stage – A Complete Historical Guide

Newsletter No. 07 -   How 1066 Changed Everything: The Norman Conquest's Lasting Legacy on English Language, Society and Culture 

Newsletter No. 08 -   Medieval Drama Uncovered: How English Theatre Evolved from Church Rituals to Complex Morality Plays

Newsletter No. 09 -   Everyman's Enduring Journey: How a 15th-Century Morality Play Still Speaks to 21st-Century Audiences

Newsletter No. 10 -   Beyond King Arthur: Exploring the Rich Tapestry of Middle English Romances - From Charlemagne to Crusaders

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Edition 06 : The Genesis of Laughter – Tracing Comedy's Evolution in English Drama

The Birth of English Comedy: From Church Miracles to Shakespeare's Stage – A Complete Historical Guide

Keywords: origins of English comedy, medieval comic drama, first English plays, mystery plays comedy, morality plays humour, Tudor interludes, Renaissance comedy influences, Ralph Roister Doister analysis, pre-Shakespearean theatre

Introduction :

Welcome to this edition of The Insight Newsletter, where we embark on an intellectual journey through the fascinating evolution of English comedy. This survey begins not in the glittering theatres of Elizabethan London, but in the humble churchyards and market squares of medieval England. The development of comedy as a distinct dramatic genre represents one of the most significant cultural transformations in English literary history—a movement from sacred to secular, from Latin to vernacular, and from didactic instruction to pure entertainment. In this comprehensive guide, we will trace comedy's remarkable journey from its embryonic appearances in religious drama to its full flowering in the first acknowledged English comedies of the mid-sixteenth century. Understanding this evolution is crucial for appreciating how English drama developed its unique voice, blending native wit with classical sophistication to create the foundation upon which Shakespeare and his contemporaries would build their immortal works.

Content:

• The Sacred Origins: Liturgical Drama's Unintentional Humour

• English drama originated within the ecclesiastical tradition as liturgical tropes—brief dramatized interpolations in the Latin Mass. The earliest known example, Quem Quaeritis ("Whom do you seek?"), dating from the 10th century, dramatized the visit of the three Marys to Christ's tomb. While strictly religious in purpose, these performances established the dialogic format essential to drama.

• As these liturgical dramas expanded into cycle plays (also called mystery plays), performed by trade guilds on movable pageant wagons, they began incorporating vernacular elements and comic episodes. The four great cycles—Chester, York, Wakefield, and Coventry—presented Biblical history from Creation to Judgment Day, but increasingly included humorous scenes that reflected contemporary life.

• The comic potential of these religious dramas emerged through humanization of Biblical characters. In the Chester cycle's Deluge, Noah's wife appears not as a pious matriarch but as a stubborn, sharp-tongued woman who refuses to board the ark without her gossips and even slaps her husband. This characterization introduced domestic comedy into sacred narrative, making theological stories relatable through familiar human foibles.

• The Wakefield Master: Comedy Finds Its First English Voice

• The anonymous Wakefield Master, active in the early 15th century, represents the first truly distinctive comic voice in English drama. His contributions to the Wakefield (Towneley) cycle demonstrate remarkable literary skill and innovative approach to religious material.

• Secunda Pastorum (The Second Shepherds' Play) stands as his masterpiece and a landmark in comic development. While maintaining the Nativity framework, the play devotes most of its attention to a subplot involving the shepherds Mak and Gyll, who steal a sheep and attempt to disguise it as their newborn child. This embedded farce provides sharp social commentary on poverty and class while developing sustained comic suspense.

• The Wakefield Master's techniques—realistic dialogue in regional dialect, social satire, complex plotting, and character-driven humour—anticipated techniques that would flourish in later secular comedy. His work represents a crucial transition from drama as purely religious instruction to drama as entertainment with moral dimensions.

• Morality Plays: Allegory Meets Theatricality

• Emerging in the 15th century, morality plays shifted focus from Biblical history to allegorical representations of the human soul's journey. Plays like The Castle of Perseverance, Mankind, and Everyman used personified abstractions (Vices, Virtues, Death) to explore spiritual conflicts.

• These plays introduced comic vice characters who evolved from purely evil tempters to entertaining mischief-makers. In Mankind, characters like Mischief, New Guise, and Nowadays engage in bawdy humour, physical comedy, and even meta-theatrical interactions with the audience (including collecting money for viewing privileges).

• The morality tradition contributed significantly to comedy's development through: character typology (stock characters that would reappear in later comedy), audience engagement techniques, and the dramatization of moral conflicts through entertaining means rather than pure sermonizing.

• Interludes: The Secular Breakthrough

• The 16th century witnessed the rise of interludes—short, often farcical plays performed in noble households, universities, and public spaces. These works marked drama's decisive turn toward secular subjects and contemporary satire.

• John Heywood, the master of the interlude form, created works like The Play Called the Four PP (c. 1530), which features a lying contest between a Palmer, Pardoner, Potecary, and Pedlar. This play exemplifies the shift to social satire targeting recognizable contemporary types, particularly corrupt religious figures.

• Other notable interludes include John Skelton's Magnificence (political allegory), John Bale's King Johan (proto-historical drama supporting Reformation politics), and Johan Johan (domestic farce about a cuckolded husband). These works expanded comedy's range to include political commentary, domestic humour, and realistic social observation.

• Classical Influences and the First True Comedies

• The Renaissance revival of classical learning introduced English humanists to Roman comedy, particularly Plautus and Terence. University productions of Latin plays and translations of Italian Renaissance comedies provided models for plot construction, character types, and dramatic structure.

• Nicholas Udall's Ralph Roister Doister (1553-54) is universally recognized as the first true English comedy. As headmaster at Westminster School, Udall combined his knowledge of Plautine comedy (particularly Miles Gloriosus) with native interlude traditions. The play features a unified five-act structure, recognizable character types (the braggart soldier, the clever servant, the chaste widow), and a plot centered on romantic intrigue and mistaken identities.

• The anonymous Gammer Gurton's Needle (c. 1566), first performed at Christ's College, Cambridge, represents another landmark. While less structurally sophisticated than Udall's work, it excels in rustic humour, vivid characterization, and use of vernacular dialogue. The play's central concern—the search for a lost needle that turns out to be stuck in a character's breeches—demonstrates how trivial domestic matters could sustain full-length comedy.

• These early comedies established patterns that would dominate English comedy for centuries: the clever servant outwitting his superiors, romantic complications resolved through discovery, social satire through character exaggeration, and the integration of native humour with classical forms.

• Italian Influences and Prose Comedy

• Italian Renaissance drama, particularly commedia erudita (learned comedy) and commedia dell'arte (professional improvised comedy), provided additional models. George Gascoigne's Supposes (1566), a translation of Ariosto's I Suppositi, introduced Italianate comedy of intrigue to English audiences.

• Significantly, Supposes was written in prose rather than verse—a groundbreaking departure that allowed for more naturalistic dialogue. The play's themes of disguise, mistaken identity, and romantic deception would become staples of Elizabethan comedy, most notably in Shakespeare's works.

• Legacy and Transition to Elizabethan Comedy

• The development traced here—from liturgical drama to secular comedy—created the essential foundation for the explosion of dramatic creativity in the Elizabethan period. Key achievements included: establishment of comedy as legitimate genre, development of native comic traditions, integration of classical models, and creation of enduring character types.

• When Shakespeare began writing in the 1590s, he inherited a comic tradition already rich with possibilities: the realistic humour of the mystery plays, the allegorical depth of the moralities, the social satire of the interludes, and the structural sophistication of classical comedy. His genius lay not in inventing English comedy but in synthesizing and transcending these diverse traditions.

 

Unravelling the Histories of Africa and the Caribbean

Greetings, esteemed readers,

Welcome to this inaugural edition of The Insight Newsletter, a publication dedicated to illuminating the complex historical tapestry that forms the bedrock of African and Caribbean literatures in English. To truly appreciate the power, nuance, and protest woven into the works of authors from Chinua Achebe to Derek Walcott, one must first navigate the turbulent seas of colonialism and the arduous journey towards decolonisation. This study "Unravelling the Histories of Africa and the Caribbean" serves as a compass, guiding you through the pivotal processes that shaped continents and diasporas, forging identities amidst subjugation and resistance.

I. The Imposition of Order: Understanding Colonialism

The term ‘colonialism’ is not merely a historical period but a pervasive system of domination, extraction, and cultural imposition. Its legacy is the very canvas upon which modern African and Caribbean nations were sketched, often without regard for the indigenous landscapes of people and tradition.

The Conceptual Foundations:

A Civilising Mask for Exploitation: The colonial enterprise was invariably driven by economic rapacity, cloaked in the rhetoric of a ‘civilising mission’. As noted in the seminal text, European powers engaged in a literal worldwide ‘search and occupy’ operation. This mission, cynically summarised as ‘Philanthropy at 5%’ or ‘Christianity and Commerce’, sought to justify the extraction of resources and labour by promising enlightenment and salvation to so-called ‘primitive’ societies. This duality is masterfully critiqued in literary works like Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which locates the heart of this exploitative darkness within Europe itself.

The Scramble for Africa: The Berlin Conference of 1884-85 stands as a stark symbol of colonial arrogance. European powers, with no African representation, arbitrarily carved a continent into spheres of influence and administrative units. This act, aimed at preventing intra-European conflict and securing unimpeded access to resources, created the modern map of Africa. These borders, drawn for colonial convenience, disregarded ethnic, linguistic, and cultural boundaries, sowing seeds for future geopolitical tensions.

Modes of Domination: Varieties of Colonial Rule

Colonial administration was not monolithic; it adapted to local contexts to maximise control and profit.

Settler Colonisation: In regions like Kenya, Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), and parts of Southern Africa, Europeans established permanent settlements, dispossessing indigenous populations of their most vital asset: land. Legislation like the Crown Lands Ordinances legally stripped native farmers of their territories, reducing them to labourers on their own soil. The violent resistance this sparked, such as the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, became a central theme in anti-colonial literature, as seen in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s works.

Plantation Slavery & Indenture: The Caribbean’s history is fundamentally shaped by the brutal system of plantation slavery, fuelled by the Transatlantic Slave Trade. Enslaved Africans were the economic engine of islands like Jamaica and Barbados. Following abolition, the system evolved into indentured labour, with thousands from India and elsewhere transported to fill the labour gap, creating the region’s distinctive multi-ethnic demographic. This history of displacement and forced migration is central to the Caribbean literary imagination.

Indirect Rule: Pioneered by figures like Lord Lugard in Nigeria, this system allowed colonial powers to govern vast territories with minimal European personnel. By co-opting local traditional authorities and structures, the British maintained military and fiscal control while delegating everyday administration. This policy often entrenched and fossilised certain power dynamics, with consequences lasting into the post-independence era.

II. The Violence of Erasure and the Struggle for Memory

A core weapon of colonialism was epistemic violence—the systematic denial, distortion, and eradication of indigenous histories and knowledge systems.

Whose History?

The infamous assertion by historian H.R. Trevor-Roper that Africa had no history, only the history of Europeans in Africa, exemplifies the colonial mindset. This erasure is powerfully rebutted in literature. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart stands as a monumental act of historical recovery, dramatising how a rich, complex Igbo society was rendered a mere footnote (“The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger”) in colonial records.

In the Caribbean, the rupture was even more profound. The trauma of the Middle Passage severed direct ties to ancestral homelands. As V.S. Naipaul controversially noted, there was a perceived historical void, a creation ex nihilo by colonialism and slavery. Writers like Erna Brodber and Earl Lovelace have dedicated their work to recovering and re-humanising this obscured past.

Cultural Colonisation & the Colonial Classroom:

Policies like the 1835 English Education Act in India, which aimed to create “a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste,” were exported to Africa. Education became a tool for cultural assimilation, promoting European languages, histories, and literatures as superior. The imposition of English supplanted local languages and reframed worldviews. The struggle to reclaim and re-centre indigenous languages and oral traditions remains a vital literary and political project, particularly championed by thinkers like Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o.

III. Forging Identity: Nationalism, Transnationalism, and Resistance

The response to colonialism was not passive. From its crucible emerged powerful, if sometimes contentious, ideologies of solidarity and self-determination.

Anti-Colonial Nationalism:

The first generation of nationalist leaders were often products of the colonial education system. They used the tools of the coloniser—the English language, liberal political ideas—to articulate demands for freedom. Figures like Jomo Kenyatta and Kwame Nkrumah exemplify this. In settler colonies, nationalism was frequently militant, encompassing armed struggle for land reclamation, brutally suppressed and labelled as terrorism by colonial authorities.

Pan-Africanism & Negritude:

Pan-Africanism emerged as a transnational political response, uniting people of African descent across continents against racism and colonial subjugation. It emphasised a shared heritage and common struggle, though was later critiqued by Frantz Fanon for potentially overlooking the specificities of national liberation.

Negritude, a literary and ideological movement pioneered by Aimé Césaire and Léopold Sédar Senghor, was a powerful affirmation of black identity, culture, and value in the face of white supremacist negation. While Senghor emphasised complementarity, Césaire’s vision was more radical, asserting an independent standard for black civilisation born from its history of suffering and resistance.

Creolisation & Transnationalism:

The Caribbean, born of displacement and confluence, challenges traditional European models of nationhood based on homogeneous ethnicity. Thinkers like Édouard Glissant proposed the “Poetics of Relation” and the “rhizome” as models to understand its identity—not as a single root but as a network of interconnected, constantly evolving relationships. Transnationalism here reflects the reality of a region where identities constantly navigate between local, regional (the Americas), and ancestral (African/Asian) connections.

IV. The Unfinished Project: Decolonisation and the Spectre of Neocolonialism

Political independence in the mid-20th century was a monumental achievement, but it did not automatically equate to total liberation.

The Limits of Political Decolonisation: As noted by observers like Lord Hailey, the British model often involved a “transfer of power” to an English-educated middle class, without fundamental restructuring of the colonial economic system. This ensured a degree of continuity favourable to former colonial interests.

Neocolonialism: Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah presciently identified this new form of control. Neocolonialism describes a situation where former colonies attain political sovereignty but remain economically, and thus politically, dependent on former colonisers and Western multinational corporations. Institutions like the Commonwealth could sometimes function to legitimise these enduring unequal economic relationships. The “economy of dependence” remains a central challenge for postcolonial nations.

V. Literary Imaginaries as Historical Corrective

The Anglophone literatures of Africa and the Caribbean are not mere products of history; they are active agents in its reinterpretation. They:

Restore Silenced Voices: Novels like Marlon James’s The Book of Night Women or Andrea Levy’s The Long Song give visceral, intimate accounts of slavery.

Interrogate History: Works like Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place or Abdulrazak Gurnah’s novels critically examine the lingering psyche of colonialism.

Imagine New Communities: Through their exploration of creolised identities, hybrid languages, and transnational affinities, writers from Derek Walcott to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie forge literary visions that transcend the narrow boundaries imposed by colonialism.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: What is the difference between ‘colonisation’ and ‘colonialism’?

A: While often used interchangeably, ‘colonisation’ typically refers to the specific act of establishing settlements or control over a territory. ‘Colonialism’ is the broader, overarching system of political, economic, and cultural domination that sustains that control over time.

Q: Why is the Berlin Conference (1884-85) so significant?

A: It was the apex of European imperial arrogance, where continents were partitioned without the consent of their inhabitants. It created the artificial borders of modern African states, prioritising European administrative and economic needs over indigenous realities, leading to enduring conflicts.

Q: How did colonisation impact African and Caribbean cultures differently?

A: In Africa, despite severe oppression, communities largely remained on their ancestral lands, allowing for greater (though pressured) continuity of languages and traditions. In the Caribbean, the complete rupture of the Middle Passage and the deliberate mixing of diverse ethnic groups on plantations necessitated the creation of entirely new, syncretic cultures (Creole cultures) from fragmented memories and innovations.

Q: What is ‘Negritude’ and is it still relevant?

A: Negritude was a mid-20th century philosophical and literary movement that asserted the value, dignity, and distinctiveness of black African culture and identity. While later critiqued for being essentialist or reactive, its historical role in combating racial inferiority complexes was crucial. Its themes of cultural affirmation remain relevant in ongoing discussions about identity and representation.

Q: What does ‘neocolonialism’ mean?

A: Neocolonialism refers to the continued economic, cultural, or political influence exerted over a nominally independent state by a former colonial power or other external authority. Instead of direct military control, it operates through capital, debt, trade agreements, and cultural hegemony, perpetuating patterns of dependency.

Q: Why do postcolonial writers often use English, the language of the coloniser?

A: This is a complex and debated choice. Some use it for practical access to wider audiences, to “write back” to the centre of empire in its own tongue, or to subvert and reshape the language (a process called ‘appropriation’). Others, like Ngũgĩ, have abandoned English for indigenous languages as a more radical act of decolonisation.

Conclusion: The Unending Conversation

The histories of colonisation and decolonisation are not closed chapters but living conversations that continue to shape global politics, economics, and cultural production. The literatures born from these processes are essential guides, offering not just testimony but also profound insight, critique, and vision. They remind us that the past is never truly past, and that understanding its contours is the first step toward imagining more equitable futures.

Keywords: Decolonisation, African Colonial History, Caribbean Slavery, Postcolonial Literature, Negritude Movement, British Empire Legacy.