Biography (Life, Major Contribution And Legacy Of CLR James?
Biography (Life, Major Contribution and Legacy) of CLR James
James was born on January 4, 1901 in Port of Spain, the largest city in colonial Trinidad. He spent most of his youth in the village of Tunapuna, eight miles outside the city. His father was a school teacher, a significant position in the colonial Caribbean, and his mother had been educated in a Weslyan convent. The status and education of his parents marked James as somewhat privileged in relation to the other residents of Tunapuna. As Paul Buhle writes, his biographer:
“James' family had for two generations, on both sides, embraced respectability with a ferocious grip, 'not an ideal ... but an armor' against the angers of lumpenization. They had been more or less successful in this …show more content…
He read widely, including the Bible, all of Shakespeare's plays, and all six volumes of Havelock Ellis's The Psychology of Sex from cover to cover. James could have easily received a scholarship to a university in England, but chose to remain in Trinidad. He received a school certificate from Queen's Royal College in 1918, and immediately became a schoolmaster. He was highly respected as a teacher, and once staged a full version of Shakespeare's Othello with his class to ensure his students understood it for their preparatory exams. Intelligent and handsome, James circulated in the island's modest young bohemian milieu. He attended plays and concerts (his favorites included Verdi, Beethoven as well as Calypso), contributed essays and cricket reports to small magazines, and became known as something of an authority on literary …show more content…
James realistically revealed the brutality caused by growing capitalism to a Euro-American audience who are still in grave denial about the reality of slavery. The Black Jacobins also contested the mythology surrounding about racial inferiority being debated - from eugenics to fascism - by that same Euro-American audience. James showed how even in the most degraded circumstances, slave society had cultivated a leadership that included such figures as Toussaint L'Ouverture, Jean-Jacque Dessalines and Henri Christophe. The significance of The Black Jacobins is indicated by one
James was born on January 4, 1901 in Port of Spain, the largest city in colonial Trinidad. He spent most of his youth in the village of Tunapuna, eight miles outside the city. His father was a school teacher, a significant position in the colonial Caribbean, and his mother had been educated in a Weslyan convent. The status and education of his parents marked James as somewhat privileged in relation to the other residents of Tunapuna. As Paul Buhle writes, his biographer:
“James' family had for two generations, on both sides, embraced respectability with a ferocious grip, 'not an ideal ... but an armor' against the angers of lumpenization. They had been more or less successful in this …show more content…
He read widely, including the Bible, all of Shakespeare's plays, and all six volumes of Havelock Ellis's The Psychology of Sex from cover to cover. James could have easily received a scholarship to a university in England, but chose to remain in Trinidad. He received a school certificate from Queen's Royal College in 1918, and immediately became a schoolmaster. He was highly respected as a teacher, and once staged a full version of Shakespeare's Othello with his class to ensure his students understood it for their preparatory exams. Intelligent and handsome, James circulated in the island's modest young bohemian milieu. He attended plays and concerts (his favorites included Verdi, Beethoven as well as Calypso), contributed essays and cricket reports to small magazines, and became known as something of an authority on literary …show more content…
James realistically revealed the brutality caused by growing capitalism to a Euro-American audience who are still in grave denial about the reality of slavery. The Black Jacobins also contested the mythology surrounding about racial inferiority being debated - from eugenics to fascism - by that same Euro-American audience. James showed how even in the most degraded circumstances, slave society had cultivated a leadership that included such figures as Toussaint L'Ouverture, Jean-Jacque Dessalines and Henri Christophe. The significance of The Black Jacobins is indicated by one