Transmission et variations sur l'île des conteurs : la Caraïbe de Toni Morrison dans Tar Baby

Abstract

The article aims at showing how folklore’s dynamics of transmission participates in the construction of Toni Morrison's Caribbean novel, Tar Baby. The different versions of the eponymous folktale, as well as of the legend of the horsemen, show the plasticity allowed by oral literature, for they unfold in all their diversity according to the paths that History (and its meaning) has taken to reach the characters and the readers. The territory of the island itself—named for the legend—proves to be rife in stories and made of a sentient nature which gives off the marvelous. However, this “marvelous in the real” needs to be perceived in an adequate way so that the process of transmission can effectively take place. The question then arises as to the identity of the mediator who makes it possible for the reader to access the particular richness of this imaginary part of the Caribbean: I suggest to read the blind horsemen of legend as the storytellers of the island.Carline Blanc Encarnación est maîtresse de conférences en littérature américaine à l’Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès et mène sa recherche au laboratoire CAS (Cultures Anglo-Saxonnes, EA 801). Spécialiste de Toni Morrison et de Zora Neale Hurston, elle s’intéresse particulièrement aux questions d’oralité et de savoirs populaires et marginaux dans une perspective privilégiant les croisements disciplinaires.