Saint-John Perse’s orality points forward to future resolution rather than backward to lost place

Evidence

The work of Saint-John Perse aims at pushing memory (ofa place, of people, of the things seen in childhood) far forward. This orality does Ilot invite listeners to the shadow’s edge; it throws each one of us into the resolution of one to come. Éloges is not a tormented memory that is repeated in shadows but the suspense heralding solemn departures. The poet knows that he has absolutely lost the thing he always remembers, the thing he leaves behind. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 260

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Perse’s colonial-creole tensions resist reduction to biographical drama — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 253; Saint-John Perse’s orality is inward and private, not declamatory — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 257; The future now plays the same rhetorical role the pastoral past once played — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 755

Broader Connections

• The future now plays the same rhetorical role the pastoral past once played #expands (0.95) — James W. Carey, Communication as Culture- Essays on…, 755