Contents
Introduction A Poetics of Indirection and Telling It Slant
Chapter 1 Diffusion and Mixture
Homer: The Odyssey in a Sea of Difference
Cavafy: Diaspora, Oblique Encounters, and Homoerotic Desire
Césaire: The Colonial Antilles and a Map of One’s Own Spilled Blood
Woolf: Tilting at Pagans’ Heads in a House That Is a Town
Chapter 2 Islands and Isolation
Homer: From Calypso to the Therapy of the Word
Cavafy: Cosmopolitan Isolation and Sexual Shaming
Woolf: Domestic Katabasis and Moments of Being
Césaire: Peléan Eruptions and Portraits of Blood
Chapter 3 Passage and Detour
Homer: Odysseus’s Wound and Narrative Detours
Césaire: Lagoons of Blood and Literary Cannibalism
Woolf: Constantinople and Exile as Carnival
Cavafy: Mediterranean Routes and Ephebic Visions
Chapter 4 Return and Split Endings
Homer: Murder in the Home and Split Endings
Woolf: Time Warps and Wild Goose Chases
Césaire: The Incised Tree, the Slave Ship, and the Pirogue
Cavafy: Hedonic Ships on Policed Waters
Epilogue Toward an End
Bibliography
Index