Islands, Literature, and Cultural Translatability
摘要
This essay provides a historical overview of the island tradition in European literature and links it specifically to the notion of cultural translatability and the idea of the floating island as a floating signifier with a focus on canonical writers from Greco-Roman antiquity to the contemporary period, and finally using the example of the Caribbean to discuss islands in a post-colonial and global perspective. Island spaces are used to explore and create bridges between the real and the imaginary as a response to cultural and social realities, frequently taking the form of utopias/dystopias, Edens, Arcadias, nations, metatexts, cultural crossroads. The virtual spaces of islands are susceptible to translatability and articulate perspectives on the shifting relationship between self and other, center and periphery, serving as sites of mediation between cultures. Within an increasingly global culture marked by inequalities and differences, islands may induce a contrapuntal approach to literary and cultural criticism.