Dans les romans et nouvelles d’Earl Lovelace, l'île de Trinidad se trouve aux confluents de systèmes antagonistes, branlés par la récente décolonisation. Les forces civiles et religieuses, piliers de l’organisation sociétale, ne peuvent échapper aux dynamiques de transmutation et d’adaptation. Ainsi, dans un contexte de sécularisation et de politisation croissante, le religieux se voit obligé d’écarter toute tendance autarcique, s’il veut triompher de la tentative d’annexion par le politique. Un conflit, dont l’enjeu n’est autre que la survie de l’individu, est dès lors engagé. Cette thèse se propose d’explorer les relations de rivalité et d’usurpation entre pouvoirs civils et religieux de même que l’issue du dépassement de cette dichotomie au sein de la Caraïbe lovelacienne. En d’autres termes, le politique dans la fiction de Lovelace détruit-il le religieux ou fait-il corps avec lui afin que s’opère le passage d’une politique condamnable à une foi praxis de libération ? / In his novels and short stories, Earl Lovelace describes the island of Trinidad as caught in the ebb and flow of two antagonistic systems of thought, both shattered in the event of a sudden decolonisation. Religion and politics, the corner stones of social architecture, have no choice but to undergo changes in view of adaptation. Facing a background of secularisation and growing political consciousness, religion is compelled to lay aside its selfsufficiency to avoid being overthrown by the body politics. As a consequence, a struggle, in which the survival of individuals is at stake, ensues. This thesis offers to explore the rivalries between the religious and political bodies as well as the ability of Lovelace’s fictional Caribbean to overcome this dichotomy. In other words, in Lovelace’s work does polity annihilate religion or act in accordance with it to achieve a move from unworthy politics to a faith aiming at liberation?

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Dance appears often in Anglophone Caribbean literature, usually when a character chooses to celebrate and emphasize her/his freedom from the physical, emotional, and societal constraints that normally keep the body in check. This study examines how a character's political consciousness often emerges in chorus with aesthetic bodily movement and analyzes the symbolic force and political significance of Caribbean dance--both celebratory (as in Carnival) and defensive (as in warrior dances). Furthermore, this study observes how the weight of Western views on dance influences Caribbean transmutations and translations of cultural behavior, ritual acts, and spontaneous movement. The novels studied include Samuel Selvon's "The Lonely Londoners" (1956), Earl Lovelace's "The Dragon Can't Dance" (1979), Paule Marshall's "Praisesong for the Widow" (1983), and Marie-Elena John's "Unburnable" (2006).