Aimé Césaire: a warrior in search of beauty

Abstract

This essay examines several tributes that appeared following Cesaire's death on 17 April 2008, namely, those expressed by three major Martinican creative writers and thinkers, Patrick Chamoiseau, Edouard Glissant, and Raphael Confiant. References to Guadeloupean writers Ernest Pepin's and Daniel Maximin's homages are also included. Reminding the reader that the legacy of Cesaire the poet is immense, notwithstanding the disagreements their authors may have had with Cesaire the politician, these tributes offer a sharp contrast with, for instance, an article published by Boukhalfa Amazit in the Algerian journal El Watan , on 15 May 2008. While Chamoiseau's text follows a lyrical vein steeped in emotion, Glissant's development seems to be more pedagogically oriented, tracing the historical, sociopolitical, even biographical landscapes in which Cesaire's work is rooted. Both Glissant and Chamoiseau, however, succeed in placing the struggles of Cesaire, le guerrier (Chamoiseau's term-the warrior), within the poetic process itself. Indeed, the task of the warrior-poet, not only is, but can only function as, a constant search for the unreachable, the impossible. In his development, Chamoiseau takes the reader along a subtle journey linking combat to life and and, ultimately, to language. Aware of the fact that the term beauty is neither philosophically, culturally, nor aesthetically innocent, and that the dialectic suggested by Chamoiseau between life and is not evident, and may even seem problematic, this essay attempts to follow such an itinerary through a close reading of carefully selected excerpts from Cesaire's texts. In so doing, the author of this essay is led to include a reassessment of some translated pieces, as well as references to major interviews (with Lilyan Kesteloot, Jacqueline Leiner, Maryse Conde) and scholarly works (Aliko Songolo, Rene Henane). Along the way the author invites the participation of several other writers and thinkers, namely, Baudelaire, Lorand Gaspar, W. E. Du Bois, Edward Kamau Brathwaite, Abdourahman Waberi, and Colleen Smith-Brown.