Portrait de la mer Noire en « belle sauvage »
A portrait of the Black Sea as a “beautiful savage”

Author(s): Alexis Nuselovici
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Geography, Regional studies, Human Geography, Theory of Literature
Published by: Сдружение „Транспонтика“
Keywords: Medea; sea; limitlessness; maternity; creativity
Summary/Abstract: It is easy to draw up the notion of literary space when one has in mind a land area. But how can we grasp the sea, which is in constant motion, and use it as a framework for a typology of this kind? The sea has never been inhabited, never been habitable, existing only in itself. In this respect, it exceeds human measurement, hence the fear and determination of Ulysses in the Mediterranean, of Jason in the Black Sea. The sea teaches us to accept an uncertain spatiality, which will carry both threat and promise. A sea of passage and neighbourhood, open (by the Greeks) or closed (by the Ottomans), the Black Sea perfectly illustrates such ambivalence that literature does not fear, accustomed as it is to travel through virtual worlds and following imaginary lives, no less real for the reader than the environment that surrounds him/her. As for Medea the magician, the wild and sovereign Princess of Colchis, she will embody through various literary versions of the myth the tension between conflict and concord that defines all literary space.

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