Constructing Caribbean Literary History

Responding to reviews of his Caribbeana: An Anthology of English Literature of the West Indies, 1657-1777 by historian Richard Drayton and Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, Thomas W. Krise responds to questions about the writing of the literary history of the early Caribbean, including: What constitutes Caribbean literature? How does early Caribbean literature compare to early North American literature? How should critics deal with the lack of records from oral cultures? And, should early Caribbean literature be taught, and, if so, how?