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Poetics of relation  Cover Image Book Book

Poetics of relation / Édouard Glissant ; translated by Betsy Wing.

Glissant, Édouard, 1928-2011 (Author). Wing, Betsy. (Added Author).

Summary:

Edouard Glissant, long recognized in the French and francophone world as one of the greatest writers and thinkers of our times, is increasingly attracting attention from English-speaking readers. Born in Martinique in 1928, Glissant earned a doctorate from the Sorbonne. When he returned to his native land in the mid-sixties, his writing began to focus on the idea of a "relational poetics," which laid the groundwork for the "creolite" movement, fueled by the understanding that Caribbean culture and identity are the positive products of a complex and multiple set of local historical circumstances. Some of the metaphors of local identity Glissant favored--the hinterland (or lack of it), the maroon (or runaway slave), the creole language--proved lasting and influential. In Poetics of Relation, Glissant turns the concrete particulars of Caribbean reality into a complex, energetic vision of a world in transformation. He sees the Antilles as enduring suffering imposed by history, yet as a place whose unique interactions will one day produce an emerging global consensus. Arguing that the writer alone can tap the unconscious of a people and apprehend its multiform culture to provide forms of memory capable of transcending "nonhistory," Glissant defines his "poetics of relation"-- both aesthetic and political--as a transformative mode of history, capable of enunciating and making concrete a French-Caribbean reality with a self-defined past and future. Glissant's notions of identity as constructed in relation and not in isolation are germane not only to discussions of Caribbean creolization but also to our understanding of U.S. multiculturalism. In Glissant's view, we come to see that relation in all its senses -- telling, listening, connecting, and the parallel consciousness of self and surroundings -- is the key to transforming mentalities and reshaping societies.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9780472066292 (alk. paper)
  • ISBN: 0472066293 (alk. paper)
  • Physical Description: xxiii, 226 p. ; 23 cm.
  • Publisher: Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, c1997.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references (p. 225-226) and glossary.
Formatted Contents Note:
Imaginary -- Approaches -- The Open Boat -- Errantry Exile -- Poetics -- A Rooted Errantry --- Elements. Repetitions -- Expanse and filiation -- Closed Place Open Word -- Concerning a Baroque Abroad in the World -- Concerning the Poem's Information --- Paths. Creolizations -- Dictate, Dcree -- To Build the Tower -- Transparency and Opacity -- The Black Beach --- Theories. Relation -- The Relative and Chaos -- Distancing Determining -- That That -- Relinked Relayed Related --- Poetics. Generalization -- That Those Beings Be Not Relation -- For Opacity -- Open Circle Lived Relation -- The Burning Beach.
Original Version Note:
Originally published: Poétique de la relation. Paris, Gallimard, 1990.
Subject: Creole dialects, French > Martinique.
French language > Martinique.
Language and culture > Martinique.
Nationalism and literature > Martinique.
France > Relations > West Indies, French.
Martinique > Civilization > 20th century.
Martinique > Dependency on France.
West Indies, French > Relations > France.

Available copies

  • 0 of 1 copy available at Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

Holds

  • 1 current hold with 1 total copy.
Show Only Available Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Circulation Modifier Holdable? Status Due Date Courses
Emily Carr University of Art + Design F2081.8 .G55 1997 (Text) 30225258 Book Volume hold Checked out 2025-02-24


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