The Sea in the Page: Water’s Journey Through Literature
When we discussed the theme of this issue and decided to pick water/sailing as our fil rouge, I was extremely excited with it. Given my background in literature, my mind immediately went there, and I started brainstorming about the million directions this article might have taken. The cradle of humankind settled around water, civilizations flourished in the surroundings of rivers, lakes, seacoasts. Mesopotamia – present-day Iraq – is one of the sites of earliest development of the Neolithic revolution and is considered to be the crib of some of the earliest civilizations. Its name derives from two ancient Greek words, mesos (middle) and potamos (river), literally meaning the land between two rivers. And literature has always reflected the centrality of water for human civilizations. From Greek and Latin classics to post-modern fiction, water, sometimes sailing, commonly happens to be not just a background aspect, but an element charged with great significance and symbolism.
And, well, since the options were so many and the choice hard to make, I decided to use the space of this article to present – or remind of – some of the most beautiful, significant or extravagant representation of water and sailing in literature.
Before we start this journey, however, a little disclaimer: this overview is personal and biased, highly influenced by my European, and, even more precisely, Italian, literary background. Hence it will for sure lack of some of the most beautiful images that other places, other literatures, philosophies, and cultures have given to humankind. But deep down, giving a precise and strictly academic overview of them is not even the aim of the article, nor could it ever be done in the space of an article as such.
Now that the premises have been settled, it’s time to weigh anchor and set sail in this journey of selection of literary images of water.
Start of the journey: Water, sailing, and discovery
Since water has been so important form the very beginning of human civilisations, let’s start from the beginning – from Antiquity. One of the masterpieces that the ancient Greek civilization has left is the Odyssey. The epic follows the journey of Odysseus, the heroic king of Ithaca, as he has to go back home after the Trojan war. Together with his men, he embarks on a journey across the sea. The beginning of the narration is already interesting: Odysseus in fact, had spent ten years waiting to return home after the end of the war, because he angered Poseidon, the god of the sea, who would not let him get back home safe. Thanks to the intervention of the goddess Athena, he could then finally start his journey back to Ithaca. The sea is the fluid protagonist of the whole epic, and it is charged with the exact opposite meaning all together. It is an opportunity – a way to reach home – but also an obstacle – it divides Odysseus from Ithaca and his family. It represents the fascinating unknown, it is dangerous, it is a way to gain knowledge, but it entails the peril that one loses themselves in along the way. This last aspect is perhaps the most known, and it is what makes Odysseus such a fascinating character. The Greek word to describe it is ybris. His desire to know, to be godlike, on some occasion almost put his life in danger. This happens for instance in a well-known passage in Book XII. Sailing towards present-day Sicily, Odysseus goes through the turmoil caused by sea monsters Scylla and Charybdis, mythological figures that personified the strong currents of the trait of the sea.
To go through them, Odysseus must learn how to lead his ship through the perils of the sea. But his hazardous journey also carries him through a trait of sea inhabited by Sirens – creatures known for their melodious voice, but whose song no one dared to listen to, as it was said to drive anyone crazy. Odysseus, wanting to know what the Sirens’ voice sounded like, had his men tie him to the ship’s mast. While the crew had stuffed their ears so as not to be tempted by the Sirens’ voice, Odysseus listened to it, endangering his life in dangerous waters.
Everything happens at sea, on the water, in an ever-changing landscape, deprived of stillness. However, it is exactly because of this restlessness that the transformation can happen, that knowledge is gained (Helms, 2014).
This ambitious and enterprising spirit is something that keeps coming back in different ages of human history, culture and literature. There is a whole current of travel literature that flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries, full of sea stories and adventures, not only historically real, but also of imaginative ones: some of the most known examples are Gulliver’s Travels by Johnatan Swift, Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe and Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Especially in this last one, water undeniably plays a relevant role; and it is not just a setting, the background landscape, but also a metaphor of philosophical research for the truth, for knowledge (Kirsch, 1976). Odysseus start his journey pushed by his curiosity to know more about the world, while Ahab, the ship’s captain, co-protagonist of Moby Dick, goes on a journey to discover more about his inner world (Kirsch, 1976).
Going with the flow: Waves, love poetry and freedom
Water, sailing, and waves, however, are not always a metaphor of quest. Ahab and Odysseus were at times struggling against the fury of nature, of water, engaging in a demanding battle to get to the truth, to knowledge. But it is not always a matter of struggle. At times, authors opt for another attitude. One in which water becomes an embracing element where one can get lost, flowing with the stream, creating magnificent metaphors or sliding into a bitter sense of spleen.
There is one specific poem from the most important representative of Italian baroque, Giambattista Marino, where a fascinating metaphor is established between waves and the hair of the woman who inspired the poem: Donna che si pettina or Onde dorate. Literally meaning Woman who combs her hair, also known as Golden Waves. Nothing more descriptive for a poem that represents exactly this, but creating a sublime metaphor, comparing her hair to golden waves and the ivory comb she uses to a ship that sails it.
Onde dorate, e l’onde eran capelli,
navicella d’avorio un dì fendea;
una man pur d’avorio la reggea
per questi errori preziosi e quelli;
e, mentre i flutti tremolanti e belli
con drittissimo solco dividea ,
l’òr de le rotte fila Amor cogliea,
per formarne catene a’ suoi rubelli.
Per l’aureo mar, che rincrespando apria
il procelloso suo biondo tesoro,
agitato il mio core a morte gìa.
Ricco naufragio, in cui sommerso io moro,
poich’almen fur, ne la tempesta mia,
di diamante lo scoglio e ‘l golfo d’oro!
Golden waves, and those waves were hair,
an ivory skiff one day did cleave;
an ivory hand did guide it,
through those precious wanderings and these;
and while the trembling, beautiful swells
it parted with a furrow straight and true,
Love gathered gold from the broken strands,
to forge chains for those who rebel against him.
Through the golden sea, which rippling,
opened its stormy, blonde treasure,
my heart, agitated, went to its death.
Rich shipwreck, in which submerged I die,
since at least, in my tempest,
the reef was diamond and the gulf was gold!
The sense of abandonment a lover can feel contemplating his beloved is like the wandering one can experience at sea. Though it must not only be caused by love, but for many other reasons as well. An image of wandering permeates the poem Le bateau ivre, The drunken boat, written by a prominent figure of the French circle of poètes maudits,
Arthur Rimbaud. In the poem, the boat itself speaks, narrating its journey of freedom from the rivers to the ocean. It is a metaphor of the journey of self-discovery and discovery of the World the author himself experienced (Jesi, 2019) – he was only sixteen when he wrote it!
The poem starts with an image of freedom:
Comme je descendais des Fleuves impassibles,
Je ne me sentis plus guidé par les haleurs:
Des Peaux-Rouges criards les avaient pris pour cibles,
Les ayant cloués nus aux poteaux de couleurs.
As I was going down wild Rivers
I lost guide of my deck hands.
Yelping Indians had targeted and nailed
Their naked bodies to colored stakes.
It later goes on narrating the flowing journey of the boat, that follows the waves wherever they take it, making it discover a chaotic and lively world. (Rimbaud & Irwin, 1997)
Je sais les cieux crevant en éclairs, et les trombes
Et les ressacs et les courants: je sais le soir,
L’Aube exaltée ainsi qu’un peuple de colombes,
Et j’ai vu quelquefois ce que l’homme a cru voir!
J’ai vu le soleil bas, taché d’horreurs mystiques,
Illuminant de longs figements violets,
Pareils à des acteurs de drames très-antiques
Les flots roulant au loin leurs frissons de volets!
J’ai rêvé la nuit verte aux neiges éblouies,
Baiser montant aux yeux des mers avec lenteurs,
La circulation des sèves inouïes,
Et l’éveil jaune et bleu des phosphores chanteurs!
I know the lightning-shattered sky, water
Spouts, reckless waves and currents. I know
Evening, and morning light lifted on wings
Of gulls, and sometimes I’ve glimpsed what many
Claim to’ve seen. I’ve seen the oblong sun, cloud-dusk-
Stained, illumined with long violet shades clotting
Like actors’ ancient purple robes, their waves
Shuddering back with those of the sea.
I have dreamed the night, green and snow-
Dazzled, lifting its kiss to eyes of waves,
The circling drift of unknown saps, phosphor’s
Waking call, singing its blues and yellows.
End of the journey
The journey of water in literature could go on and on; water is important in Virginia Woolf’s oeuvres, in Dante, Joyce, Silvia Plath, Margaret Atwood, and many more. A whole new strain of literature is heading towards an ecocritical approach, and as one can imagine water is the protagonist there as well. In this respect, one of the contemporary authors that most often introduces ecocritical elements in his narrative is Amitav Gosh. He deals with urgent matters as climate change effects in most of his novels – such as The Shadow Lines – and water has a special importance in The Hungry Tide and the Ibis trilogy.
As I said starting this article, the selection presented here is limited and biased. It lacks, for instance, a substantial part of feminist literature, in which water often represents opposite forces of nature, similarly to ancient Greek literature: water is the source of life, as well as a disruptive energy. Moreover, feminist literature has often reclaimed water metaphors as symbols of resistance (Coady, 2024).
My choices thus were openly conducted in a cherry-picking way. So, if you’d like to add something more, discuss it and enrich this tiny selection, you can add comments on Inter’s Instagram post or directly under this article!
References:
Coady, A. (2024) Feminist reclaiming of water metaphors. Conference paper from Jamet, D., Crépin, C., Lafiandra, B., Waterphors, Lyon, Université Jean Moulin Lyon III, Apr. 2024
Helms, M. W. (1988). Ulysses’ Sail: An Ethnographic Odyssey of Power, Knowledge, and Geographical Distance. Princeton University Press.
Jesi, F. (2019). A Reading of Rimbaud’s “Bateau ivre.” Theory & Event, 22(4), 1003–1017. https://doi.org/10.1353/tae.2019.0063
Kirsch, J. (1976). Herman Melville in search of the self: Moby Dick. Psychological Perspectives, 7(1), 54-74. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332927608410389
Texts:
Homer., & Lattimore, R. (1967). The Odyssey of Homer. Harper & Row.
Melville, H., & Woolley, C. S. (2017). Moby Dick. Foxton Books.
Marino, G., & Croce, B. (1913). Poesie varie. G. Laterza e figli.
For the original text and English translation of Rimbaud’s Le Bateau Ivre:
Rimbaud, A., & Irwin, M. (1997). The Drunken Boat. New England Review (1990), 18(4), 50–53. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40243260
For the English translation of Gianbattista Marino’s Donna che si pettina, an AI tool has been used following a personal revision, as English translations were not available.
Laura Deon is a master student at UvA. Born and raised in Italy, she moved to Amsterdam to study communication. She studied Modern Philology during her previous master and literature remains her first love, but she’s curious about anything that captures her attention. Her main interests are comparative literature studies and she always wants to find out more on anything that relates to art, philosophy or sociology (especially when it’s intertwined with politics).
Madelene Nitzsche is a Cultural and Social Anthropology student at the University of Amsterdam with a background in communication studies, interior design, graphic design, and photography. Her experience growing up in Western and non-Western environments has influenced her interest in culture, art, urbanisation, and psychology. Opposing viewpoints, emotion, and contrast are a focus in her artistic work and it is also what drives her interest in the ethnographic approach. She is currently experimenting with multimedia artwork and poetry and perception of reality. Her vision is to integrate art and culture with ecology and community to improve societal relations and the relation to the self. You can follow her process @24yutori.