Blues Aesthetic: love and death in Whyllah Falls,by George Elliott Clarke

• Grant number: 25/06082-6
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: September 01, 2025
• End date: August 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Literature Theory
• Principal Investigator: Paulo César Andrade da Silva
• Grantee: Paulo César Andrade da Silva
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project aims to investigate how George Elliott Clarke (1960 - ) incorporates the language of blues songs, both in technical procedures (rhythm, musicality) and in themes (suffering, love, death, jealousy, betrayal, loss, identity, resistance) in the work Whylah Falls (1990). The work, of hybrid genre (narrative poem, lyric drama, epic), explores a little-studied theme: the African diaspora in Canada. The objective is to show how Clarke constructs a personal mythology from his African-Canadian heritage, reflecting on Black history and memory in Canada, while dialoguing with the Western classical heritage. The methodology includes documentary analysis of primary and secondary sources (critical texts on blues, African diaspora, and Clarke's own critical work). The project is part of a broader research that compares Clarke's poetry with that of North American poet Amiri Baraka and Brazilian Salgado Maranhão, seeking common denominators in the representation of the Black diaspora in the Americas. The research aims to expand the critical fortune on Canadian literature in Brazil and reduce the gap in inter-American comparative studies. This focus is justified by the scarcity of research on Canada in the context of the African diaspora. The analysis considers the hybridity of Whylah Falls, which blends genres and linguistic registers (formal, biblical, Black English). Blues emerges in the work as a structuring element of the Black experience, as resistance, affirmation of identity, and artistic expression. (AU)