Le monde méditerranéen et la transposition caraïbe du mythe d'Ulysse

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the privileged relationship between the culture of the Mediterranean birthplace and Walcott, a poet from Saint Lucia who speaks both Creole and English, and won the 1992 Nobel Prize for literature. Indeed, one can scarcely meet a Caribbean poet of African origin who does not adopt Césaire's and Senghor's theories on négritude, nor loudly claim, like Glissant, his African roots, insisting on his origins by turning his eyes towards the black continent. Walcott's poetical works mirror his evolution towards the assessment of an individual personality, he brushes aside any racial or religious belonging and manages to reveal a Caribbean entity whose sole claim is to be acknowledged not as a « genuine » culture in the traditional sense of the word, but as an original culture, because it is, thanks to its three-fold paternity, an elaborate blend - a case of interbreeding, as it were - involving Africa, Europe and America. The Caribbean society has been through an evolution, he claims, and creolisation has become its brand image. As a result, European image-marking is at work in the Caribbean Islands, and the myth of Ulysses is obviously part of it. Walcott exploits the myth, illustrates and adapts it to his own regional scenery. Then he strips it of its European husk and its religious contents in order to give it back its true universal meaning.

Abstract licence: CC BY-NC-ND

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