In Eric Roorda “The Ocean Reader: Theory,Culture politics introduction“,David Walcott’s “Introduction People and oceans,” and John Gillis “The Blue Humanities” When the Ocean is argued as a if there is a mention about how does the ocean connect all of us? The way of taking advantage of resources is how the narrative shifts over time due to how we want to stay relevant in the current narrative. In the linguistics Eric Roorda discusses that there is a part where both human authority and redefines words and relationships that show the importance of these roles that play into how we interpret linguistics and how language shifts over time and what people do. While Walcott’s approach in terms of writing is mainly on how do humans events have impacted memory and if it’s made up by humans not the ocean itself and lastly John Gillis modern interpretations of the ocean and how it connects more accurate to people.

In the Eric Paul Roorda “Ocean Reader: Theory, culture politics introduction” where in the text it states a term that defines how humans claims about land as their property. “Terracentrism, a term that is rapidly gaining currency, refers to people’s tendency to consider the world and human activity mainly in the context of the land and events that take place on land” (Eric Roorda,3). Roorda opens with a statement that translates to how humans own the land and define it in their own culture and influence others to identify themselves and it always keep expanding on itself to its best as far it can go. In further research and a another author named Derek Walcott “Introduction: People and Ocean” where it has stated about how humans history is created but questions if it exists. “Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs? Where is your tribal memory? Sirs, in that grey vault. The sea. The sea has locked them up. The sea is History. In the first part of the verse he is asking about if any of those have significance on them that makes a surely questions its value. In the second verse where he question of if it is memorable and stored somewhere. The third and fourth verse has the saying that the sea is stores memories in itself and always stay there as long as possible of its existence. In further evidence of Roorda “The Ocean Reader combines a present-day perspective with a broad approach and consciousness of future implications” (Roorda,3). From this part of the text which means it is not that simple on what is truly more complex and having new perspectives and being aware of others consciousness. In more of a human perspective on its views of the ocean itself. “The era of geographic discovery by European powers, narrated in the third chapter, ‘Seas Connect’, etched water routes between all the Earth’s known lands and laid the foundation for the doctrine of the freedom of the seas”(Walcott,10). Having names that connect to many routes around the world and there is a way of knowing what is today to go to these places. What Roorda explains about how does the oceans have been labeled as Geographic markers. “There is one big ocean, and while its regions have been conceptualized as separate bodies of water and named as different oceans, the fact is they are all connected and seawater travels widely and endlessly across these artificial geographic markers”(Roorda,2). Even if there is a way of connecting and labeling all together is a way of communicating with the world and knowing what it is. What the line Walcott has said from earlier from is the part of “The sea. The sea has locked them up. The sea is History” which correlates with the part of text that connection is everywhere you go and it could be founded on labeled land or the unknown part of the sea. It is a way to see the world as something that has already existed can exist again in another form. While both Roorda and Walcott have different ways of interpreting it and the work Roorda has often mentions that there is a name that connects all the oceans together and what measurements they have, while Walcott has more of the approach of something of what humans do with the ocean throughout human history. In compare and contrast of two different perspectives of the same topic and how it is written.

Gillis another author perspective on how the ocean is about what people think about the ocean in the modern day. “The seascape, once a minor genre in art history focused mainly one ships and harbors, took on new interest when nineteenth century like J. M. W. Turner and Winslow Homer pioneered the representation of light and movement on canvas, “pure seascape, as some critics have called it”(Gills). For most of prehistory where the ocean isn’t really much apart of or even mentioned but its only mention are when it is geographically by a person. This new modern perspective is more of a interpretation of what it means to seen by humans.

On a further note Gillis has mentions how the ocean is more recognized more than ever before and what portrayals in the past that can be discovered. “The emergence of the Blue humanities is a belated recognition of the relationship between modern western culture and the sea” (Gillis). It has gotten more of a scientific reasoning after the nineteenth century and what it is. Also gillis mentions how people were frightened about the sea itself and to avoid it. The main words that people described the ocean was “Ugly” “Unfit” “Repellant” and “Dangerous”.

The beginning to understand of what the Ocean truly is and what discoveries have been found and what people focused on was so different. What might be called the second discovery of the sea beginning in the late eighteenth century and accelerating in the nineteenth century and twentieth centuries, produced a vast expansion of scientific knowledge and humanistic of the sea a three dimensional living thing with a history, geography and a life all on its own”(Gillis). It has shown that this another way of bringing science and humans together that doesn’t make it feel repellent. From the other two authors Walcott and Roorda where mostly geographic of the ocean is more of the leading topic and what humans have with the ocean over the centuries and what it led to being of a some sort way of understanding and not just believing in myths. It doesn’t mean that the myth doesn’t exist it could exist it just not believed by most people.

In Walcott’s perspective about how people viewed the ocean was about how scary it was to ventured out and believing these thing would make people mythical beliefs are justified.

“First, there was the heaving oil,”

“heavy as chaos;”

“then there is light a head of the tunnel”

“the lantern of a caravel,”

“and that was genesis.”

“Then there was the packed cries,”

“the shit, the moaning:”

“Exodus.”

Bone soldered by coral to bone,

mosaics

mantled by the benediction of the shark shadow,

The part when the word “Caravel” was a small ship that European explores have used and the “Genesis” part means that there is a a beginning of a conquest. For Walcott in the next passage is was about how people have horrors

According to Walcott there is a point of view that people wrote stuff about there journey out in to the ocean blue on a boast and it describes a terrible picture on how it went and it justify there beliefs because the fear of those stories that are told are something to believe in and never really try to ventured out in the large vast Oceans and it didn’t really connect them closer and this type of thing pushes people away from understanding what the Ocean truly is. while one the other hand Gillis uses what people have said on what they found about the ocean and it is more of a change in recent times in human history. What both of these authors believe in and having evidence backing them up and what critiques they have from each other is social versus scientific knowledge and what makes it contradict but it can be connected if both sides were to be understood.

Expanding on Roorda part of the argument is that there is a reason why humans are not thinking about Ocean isn’t much of a place to be seen as anything just to pass through to go to other continents and what this says about people is more important than looking into the ways of the Ocean. “They Relentlessly hunt sea creatures, taking 90 million tons of fish from it annually” The meaning behind this of Roorda article is that there is something essential to do instead of looking into it introspectively and what it does it proves how Human nature is the top of the food chain despite having a fear of going exploring the Ocean itself and what mysteries are beyond its surface. A person from Roorda article was woman named Karen Wigen and this quote is that “Maritime scholarship seems to have burst its bounds; across disciplines, the sea is swinging into view” This is a turning point of how unity can be used to acknowledge what can be done to have people learn about the ocean and gain new knowledge. in addition to that point is ” Environmental science, social history, marine ecology and other approaches have combined to transform the field of maritime studies”(Roorda). Education is important tool to be used in a way that the general public to understand what is underneath our Ocean floors. What this is that there is something to look forward to and what it can bring for the future.

Expanding on what Gillis has said about what people still do that hasn’t really changed all that much is that “Ironically, it was when nations turned away from the sea as a place of work that writers and painters turned their full attention to the sea itself”(Gillis). It is a contradiction on what Gillis usually says about how great the Ocean really is and when the most well known people turn away from a opportunity they missed and someone else like person who don’t get much attention from people unless they are very well known especially in the Visual arts where most people don’t take seriously and when the opportunity is reaching out to people such as them to make products or projects based one what they observed from the Ocean. In past years of when people were going on voyages to other lands a man named Thomas Cole was an artist before it mainstream. “Thomas Cole’s Famous 1842 four-part painting The Voyage of life captured popular imagination, with more and more people describing in their lives nautical terms” (Gillis). The rarity of a person such as Thomas Cole was one of those things you don’t really hear much about in the News or people talking about it. It is a type of interpretation that wasn’t common for people who stuck with limiting beliefs about the Ocean. Unlike Gillis is Walcott where in his poem where it was told in a short way of passing the message on to people even if its wrong people will hold on to it like it it is a part of their beliefs.

“Sir, it is locked in them sea-sands”

This would mean that a person would be locked into the sea hands that made them freak out

“out there past the reef’s moiling shelf,”

“where the men -o’-war floated down;”

strop on these goggles, I’ll guide you there myself.”

It seems like command to do something for someone and there is the meaning specific materials in this stanza is sea related and it would indicate that there is element attached to the people who were there at the time.

What Walcott continues to add is about how human experiences with the Ocean is scary and terrifying to go down there and this kind of thing isn’t really new at all and this an interpretation of people in the western world thought about the Ocean and what is ahead of them to avoid to be seen with them at all costs. It really show how much people are not having an irrational fears and some people won’t believe them unless there is physical or witnessed on what happened back there.

From Walcott’s mythical poem, Gillis Modern interpretation of what people think about the Ocean nowadays and Roorda connections with how does the ocean connects with people. There is lots of interrelations that a person can take a way from this and what better than seeing three different perspectives on what people throughout history and with all of these perspectives as something to take and having more knowledge about the ocean is something to be cool and what all three authors have different perspectives but isn’t really wrong or right this is just something fairly new to look forward as a society and what this has brought us was how does the Ocean impacts its impression on us and how we contributed mostly negatively most of the time anyways and it started to change and continue to do so in a positive manner as such.

Work Cited

John Gillis, “The Blue Humanities” (Humanities: The Journal of the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Web. 2013)

Eric Paul Roorda, The Ocean Reader: Theory, Culture, Politics (Duke UP, 2020).
‘Introduction” (pgs. 1-4)
Week 11: The Blue Humanities: Oceanic Thinking, History, & Art Activism

Helen M. Rodzadowski, Vast Expanses: A History of the Oceans (Reaktion Books, 2018),
“Introduction: People and Oceans” (pgs. 7-12) PDF

Derek Walcott, “The Sea is History” (1978), poem