ABSTRACT

Caribbean culture, in so far as it is conceded to exist, is at once the cause, occasion, and result of evolved and evolving paradoxes. The psychic inheritance of dynamic response to disparate elements interacting to find ideal, form, and purpose within set geographical boundaries over time could not have produced otherwise. The Caribbean, at the core of which are a number of island nations, themselves in sub-regional groupings, is conscious of the dynamics of its development. For it rests firmly on the agonizing and challenging process actualized in simultaneous acts of negating and affirming, demolishing and constructing, rejecting and reshaping. Nowhere is this more evident that in the creative arts, themselves a strong index of a people's cultural distinctiveness and identity. The quest for a Caribbean cultural identity has of course been a vigorous and consistent one within the Caribbean for a long time.