Diasporic Knights: Appropriating the Arthurian Knight in the Poetry of Jay Bernard and Edward Kamau Brathwaite

Abstract

This study tackles the implicit appropriation of the figure of the Arthurian knight by contemporary diasporic poets for the purpose of voicing the racialized history of subjugation, marginalization and violence of the diaspora. By drawing on Julie Sanders’ model of appropriation, as well as Edward Said’s concept of travelling theory, this paper argues that the figure of the Arthurian knight, as reimagined in contemporary diasporic poetry, is not a figure of chivalry and glorious heroism but a disillusioned, fractured post-exile figure whose Self has been shaped by displacement. By conducting a critical reading approach of Jay Bernard’s “Duppy” and Edward Kamau Brathwaite’s “Tom”, this study engages in a textual analysis of these poems and thereby identifies the inverted forms of the Arthurian knighthood within the diasporic context. By gazing through the diasporic lens of Robin Cohen’s typology of the diaspora, this study illustrates how the mighty figure of the Arthurian knight has surpassed the boundaries of time and space and is now recontextualized by the diasporic poets to draw upon issues of displacement, injustice, and collective suffering. This paper contributes to intertextual and diasporic studies by presenting the figure of the Arthurian knight as a timeless motif which be found even in the margins of history, in the streets of protests, and on the cotton fields of slavery.