{"id":242,"date":"2014-06-10T17:20:37","date_gmt":"2014-06-10T17:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/?p=242"},"modified":"2017-05-23T15:25:37","modified_gmt":"2017-05-23T15:25:37","slug":"damas-leon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/2014\/06\/10\/damas-leon\/","title":{"rendered":"Damas, L\u00e9on"},"content":{"rendered":"

Biography<\/h3>\n
\"damas_pigments1\"<\/a>
Pigments, 1937<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

L\u00e9on-Gontran Damas was born in Cayenne, French Guiana in 1912 to a middle-class family.\u00a0His father was\u00a0of European and African descent\u00a0and there was Amerindian and African ancestry on his mother\u2019s side of the family.\u00a0Young Damas received his primary education in Cayenne, but he later moved to Martinique and attended Lyc\u00e9e Schoelcher there.\u00a0At Lyc\u00e9e, he shared philosophy classes with young\u00a0Aim\u00e9 C\u00e9saire<\/a>,\u00a0and the two started what would become a lifelong friendship.<\/p>\n

From Martinque, Damas moved on to France where he sought higher education. As a young college student he pursued studies in law to please his parents, but he also satisfied his own interests by taking courses in anthropology and developing a keen fascination in radical politics.\u00a0 Once his parents heard of his new interests and activities, they cut him off financially, and Damas was forced to take on a variety of odd jobs in order to support himself. He eventually acquired a scholarship to finance his studies.<\/p>\n

While a student in Paris he teamed up with Cesaire and Sengalese Leopold Senghor to create the foundations for what is now known as the Negritude Movement.\u00a0The trio created the literary review\u00a0L\u2019etudiant noir<\/em>\u00a0(The Black Student<\/em>), which was the forerunner of the movement, and Damas was the first of the triumvirate to publish a volume of poetry,\u00a0Pigments<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Damas served briefly in the French Army in the Second World War, and like his comrades Cesaire and Senghor, he also held political office.\u00a0He served in the French assembly (1945-1951) as deputy from Guiana, but was not elected for a second term. After his stint in politics he joined the French Overseas Radio Service. Damas also worked for UNESCO, traveling and lecturing widely in Africa, the USA, Haiti and Brazil.\u00a0Additionally, he served as contributing editor of\u00a0Pr\u00e8sence Africaine<\/em>, one of the most respected journals of Black studies, and as senior adviser to the Society of African Culture.<\/p>\n

In 1970 Damas and his wife Mrs. Marietta Campos Damas, a Brazilian, moved to Washington DC.\u00a0He accepted a summer teaching position at Georgetown University and also taught at Federal City College.\u00a0Damas later became a professor at Howard University and was named the Acting Director of the university\u2019s African Studies and Research Program. Damas remained at that prestigious institution and was Professor of African Literature at Howard University at the time of his death.\u00a0He died in January of 1978 and was interred in his home country, French Guiana.<\/p>\n

Damas and the Negritude Movement<\/h3>\n

In 1934, Cesaire, Senghor and Damas founded\u00a0L\u2019etudiant noir<\/em>\u00a0(The Black Student<\/em>), a publication that aimed to break down the nationalistic barriers<\/a> that had existed among Black students in France.\u00a0Damas himself called\u00a0L\u2019etudiant noir<\/em>\u00a0\u201ca fighting and unifying body\u201d (Warner 13).\u00a0 It was greatly influenced by a previous journal called\u00a0L\u00e9gitime D\u00e9fense<\/em>, which was published in 1932 by a group of Martinican students and quickly suppressed because of the politics it espoused.\u00a0L\u2019etudiant noir<\/em>\u00a0picked up where this previous publication left off and expanded the focus from politics to culture.\u00a0Many critics consider the creation of\u00a0L\u2019etudiant noir<\/em>\u00a0to be the beginning of the Negritude movement.<\/p>\n

Damas was the first of the 3 founders of the Negritude to publish his own book of poems.\u00a0This volume,\u00a0Pigments<\/em>, has been termed the \u201cmanifesto of the movement\u201d (Warner 25), and every work of negritude published thereafter is said to have been influenced by it.\u00a0The word \u201cnegritude\u201d was actually coined by Cesaire and it was first published in his \u201cCahier d\u2019un retour au pays natal\u201d in 1938.\u00a0The demise of\u00a0L\u2019etudiant noir<\/em>\u00a0in 1940 marked the end of first phase of the Negritude Movement (see also Paul Gilroy: The Black Atlantic<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Poetry<\/h3>\n

Damas\u2019 poetry is said to differ greatly from that of the other two forerunners of the Negritude Movement. Once source declares that Damas\u2019 \u201ccryptic style is quite different from the \u2018rich drapery\u2019 of Senghor\u2019s verse, or the extended explosions of C\u00e9saire\u2019s\u201d (Kennedy 43). His style has also been described as blunt and cryptic.\u00a0It is marked by staccato rhythms, plain language, and vivid images.\u00a0Some of the stylistic devices often employed in his poetry include alliteration, repetition and enumeration. An example of Damas\u2019s writing which illustrates some of these characteristics is the following excerpt from \u201cThey Came That Night\u201d:<\/p>\n

How many of ME ME ME
\nHave died
\nSINCE THEN
\nSince they came that night when the
\nTom
\nTom
\nRolled
\nFrom
\nRhythm
\nTo rhythm
\nThe frenzy
\nOf eyes
\nThe frenzy
\nOf hands
\nThe frenzy
\nOf statue feet<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Damas\u2019s work is significantly influenced by the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, the ideas of French surrealism, and the rhythms and tunes of African American blues and jazz (See African American Studies and Postcolonialism<\/a>). Damas himself has also commented that in his poems one can \u201cfind rhythm\u201d (Warner 24), that his poems \u201ccan be danced and they can be sung\u201d (24).\u00a0One critic also contends that Damas\u2019 poetry contains many elements of Caribbean calypso such as the call\/response technique, \u201cthe relating of personal experience, the ironic twists, the refrain, the tongue-in-cheek ending\u201d (149).\u00a0 These features are particularly evident in one of Damas\u2019 more popular works, \u201cHoquet\u201d\/ \u201cHicupps.\u201d Themes that have spanned Damas\u2019s writing include the divided self, exile and return, racial identification and solidarity, and to some extent, love.<\/p>\n

Works by L\u00e9on-Gontran Damas<\/h3>\n
    \n
  • Damas, L\u00e9on.\u00a0Pigments<\/em>. Paris: Guy L\u00e9vis Mano, 1937.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014. Retour de Guyane<\/em>.\u00a0 Paris: Jos\u00e9 Corti, 1938.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0<\/em>Po\u00e8mes n\u00e8gres sur des airs Africains<\/em>. Paris: Guy L\u00e9vis Mano, 1948.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0<\/em>Graffiti<\/em>. Paris: Seghers, 1952.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0<\/em>Black-Label<\/em>. Paris: Gallimard, 1956.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0<\/em>N\u00e8vralgies<\/em>. Paris: Pr\u00e9sence Africaine, 1966.<\/li>\n
  • \u2014.\u00a0<\/em>Veill\u00e8s noires<\/em>. Ottowa: Lem\u00e9ac, 1972.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Works Cited<\/h3>\n
      \n
    • Finn, Julio.\u00a0\u00a0Voices of Negritude<\/em>.\u00a0 London: Quartet Books, 1988.<\/li>\n
    • Kennedy, Ellen Conroy, ed.\u00a0\u00a0The Negritude Poets: An Anthology of Translations from the French<\/em>.\u00a0 New York: Thunder\u2019s Mouth Press, 1989.<\/li>\n
    • Shapiro, Norman, ed. and trans.\u00a0\u00a0N\u00e9gritude: Black Poetry from Africa and the Caribbean<\/em>.\u00a0 New York: October House Inc, 1970.<\/li>\n
    • Warner, Keith Q, ed.\u00a0Critical Perspectives on Leon Gontran Damas<\/em>.\u00a0 Washington, DC: Three Continents Press, 1988.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

      Author: Rochelle M. Smith, Fall 2001
      \nLast edited: May 2017<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Biography L\u00e9on-Gontran Damas was born in Cayenne, French Guiana in 1912 to a middle-class family.\u00a0His father was\u00a0of European and African descent\u00a0and there was Amerindian and African ancestry on his mother\u2019s side of the family.\u00a0Young Damas received his primary education in Cayenne, but he later moved to Martinique and attended Lyc\u00e9e Schoelcher there.\u00a0At Lyc\u00e9e, he shared<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":326,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[84,39,70,66,12,53,71,40,45,41,29,54,72,15,88,42,97],"class_list":{"0":"post-242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-authors-and-artists","7":"tag-aesthetics","8":"tag-africa","9":"tag-brazil","10":"tag-caribbean","11":"tag-diaspora","12":"tag-france","13":"tag-french-guiana","14":"tag-haiti","15":"tag-hybridity","16":"tag-identity","17":"tag-language","18":"tag-martinique","19":"tag-nationalism","20":"tag-poetry","21":"tag-politics","22":"tag-race","23":"tag-west-indies"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paWL6U-3U","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/326"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2740,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242\/revisions\/2740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scholarblogs.emory.edu\/postcolonialstudies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}