This book examines how water, the oceanic element from which life emerges, serves as a medium to process and reimagine the traumas of colonial history in post-decolonial literature. Drawing on the Blue Humanities and its “tidalectic” approach, it explores how three Atlantic writers use aquatic imagery to challenge Eurocentric narratives and build eco-partnerships with the other-than-human world. The texts analysed, E.K. Brathwaite’s "Caliban", J.M. Coetzee’s "Foe", and Derek Walcott’s "The Odyssey: A Stage Version", rework canonical Western texts to “write back” to colonial discourse. Water becomes both symbol and strategy, allowing these authors to reshape notions of identity, memory, and ecology. Through their reimagined narratives, they offer new ways to understand our interconnected, precarious world.
Tidalectic Visions of the Postcolonial Atlantic: Brathwaite, Coetzee and Walcott through Blue Humanities
Mattia Mantellato
2025-01-01
Abstract
This book examines how water, the oceanic element from which life emerges, serves as a medium to process and reimagine the traumas of colonial history in post-decolonial literature. Drawing on the Blue Humanities and its “tidalectic” approach, it explores how three Atlantic writers use aquatic imagery to challenge Eurocentric narratives and build eco-partnerships with the other-than-human world. The texts analysed, E.K. Brathwaite’s "Caliban", J.M. Coetzee’s "Foe", and Derek Walcott’s "The Odyssey: A Stage Version", rework canonical Western texts to “write back” to colonial discourse. Water becomes both symbol and strategy, allowing these authors to reshape notions of identity, memory, and ecology. Through their reimagined narratives, they offer new ways to understand our interconnected, precarious world.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
