Poétiques archipéliques : Saint-John Perse et Édouard Glissant

Abstract

This article links Saint-John Perse’s and Edouard Glissant ‘s poetics via the image and reality of the archipelago concluding that their imaginaries of the island are more mythic than imaginary. Their poïetic archipelagos are defined against the traditional symbolisms they denounce. Arguing in favour of a new reading of ancient texts both Saint-John Perse and Glissant advocate that Hellenic archipelity should be stripped of its humanist and romanticist supremacy. Moreover both poets argue against the West’s collective archipelagian imaginary, still largely based on colonizing utopia from the past.Finally, archipelagian poetics are bound to a plurality of genres: Glissant’s work encompassing all forms of writing, Saint-John Perse’s being pluralistic and disparate. Their writings connect intertextually, each text-island communicating with its siblings while preserving its irreducibility.