In David Walcott’s “The Sea is History,” the poem’s extensive use of biblical allusions and oceanic imagery exposes how human history, no matter how powerful it seems, is ultimately temporary and easily forgotten on land, a claim that aligns with Eric Paul Roorda and Steve Mentz’s critiques of terracentrism by revealing the human mistake of centering our worldview on land-based narratives instead of recognizing the ocean as the deeper and more enduring archive of human experience. 

First, in “The Sea Is History” by Derek Walcott, the poet portrays the ocean as an archive of cultural memory by referencing Biblical and historical knowledge, thus revealing how man-made monuments and stories are temporary but can be preserved within the ocean which carries an enduring record of human history. By connecting biblical narratives with the ocean, Walcott shows that the sea exposes and carries the realities that Scripture and monuments often spiritualize or brush over, revealing history’s buried truths.

“Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs?” (ln. 1).  Walcott opens with a challenge. He asks where the remnants of man-made creations can be found once they are long gone, to which the reply is, “The sea / has locked them up. The sea is History” (ln. 3-4), thus establishing the foundation of the poem where the sea is portrayed as a vessel containing historical knowledge and depth. 

Walcott’s challenge to monuments can be further understood through Eric Paul Roorda’s concept of terracentrism, as written in his introduction to The Ocean Reader, which describes the deeply ingrained human fallacy to center history, meaning, and value on land-based narratives rather than those of the ocean. As Roorda explains, “Those who have considered the watery majority of the planet on its own terms have often seen it as a changeless space, one without a history. Because the Ocean can’t be plowed, paved, or shaped in ways the eye is able to discern, it has seemed to be a constant, while the land has changed drastically over the centuries” (Roorda 1).  Here, he explains how because terracentrism shapes human worldviews, and thus how humans record and remember the past, only easily visible, changeable, and human-created spaces such as monuments, cities, and other land-centric features are considered significant in the recording and studying of the world’s history. On the other hand, and as Roorda described, the ocean is often wrongfully perceived as empty, unchanging, or merely an insignificant backdrop to human history, being dismissed as a geographical feature due to the fact that humans cannot easily perceive the true change and cycles it goes through, for example all of the ocean’s changes and contents are submerged and not visible to humans. So, land becomes the default perspective for the recording of history and thought, enabling humans to feel powerful and create a sense of achievement through tangible structures and borders meant to endure for long periods of time. Monuments are thus significant to humans because they provide something tangible as well as stability, and they are able to be claimed and controlled, which are qualities that are valued within land-based thinking. In contrast, the ocean is fluid, constantly moving, and impossible to fully claim or control, which prevents it from conforming to the fallacy of a terracentric worldview. Even the engineered “names” that humans give to parts of the ocean, like the Indian Ocean or Atlantic Ocean, in an attempt to divide and control them into different entities, does not take away from the fact that the ocean is factually and permanently one large body, or how “seawater travels widely and endlessly across these artificial geographic markers” (2) no matter how many futile attempts humans make to tame it. Roorda mentions how as a result, histories associated with the sea are often overlooked or erased, not because they lack significance, but because they cannot be easily understood in a society that only fathoms land as a site of importance. Walcott’s line that “the sea has / locked them up” (ln. 3-4) directly rejects the assumption that history must be visible on land to be valued. Instead, the poem exposes how terracentrism limits historical knowledge because it correlates permanence with truth and dismisses what cannot be controlled or owned. The ocean’s lack of stability and clear borders undermines the power of monuments as the most reliable mediums of remembering history, revealing that what humans choose to remember is shaped less by a true appreciation for historical depth and more by means of power, control, and comfort in understanding. Thus, Walcott’s opening lines do much more than merely introduce the sea as a setting for the poem, but rather they challenge the very logic by which humans define history. By positioning the ocean as a true vault of monuments, battles, and martyrs, Walcott’s work aligns with Roorda’s critique of land-centered history and exposes the human mistake of looking at land-based narratives over fluid, ocean realities. Through this lense, Walcott’s poem can be read as a poetic refusal of terracentrism, insisting that history exists and is held not where humans have tried to anchor it, but where it has been forgotten or allowed to endure beyond human control and perception.

Walcott continues by chronologically describing Old Testament books of the Bible. He first describes Genesis, then Exodus, then the Song of Solomon, then Lamentations. By shifting from book to book specifically in chronological order, the work shifts from a mere poem to more of a story with a sequence of events, similar to human history. Walcott is further emphasizing the representation of the ocean as a continuous timeline containing such history and depth. For example, in his representation of Exodus, Walcott writes, “Bone soldered by coral to bone, / mosaics / mantles by the benediction of the shark’s shadow” (ln. 13-15). This could be referring to the famous Exodus story of Moses delivering the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. In doing so, he parts the Red Sea just in time for the Israelites to safely escape, but the waves come crashing down on the Egyptians in their wake, thus drowning their pursuers. The imagery of coral and bone being soldered together imply a connection between elements of the ocean and the land/humans, and the specific usage of the word “soldered” implies permanence, as if they are permanently connected in history. The usage of the word “mosaics” also provides relevance as that form of art consists of several small pieces fitted together to form a larger picture. In this context, the different, small remnants of the past and history held within the ocean are more that mere bits of debris, but rather the parts that make up larger history if put together. In this story, the bones and bodies of the Egyptians lie among the coral and water, forever preserved by the blessing, or “benediction of the shark’s shadow,” in the sea. The poet uses this popular biblical story to materialize the death and the religious story. The ocean becomes not a metaphor but an archive of bodies, holding the truths that triumphant narratives erase. The biblical reference paints the ocean as an archive and it exposes the gap between Scripture’s symbolic story and the physical reality the sea remembers. 

The human tendency to trust land over ocean as reliable grounds of history can again be explained through Eric Paul Roorda’s Ocean Reader and critique of terracentrism, which reveals how familiarity and control shape what humans consider meaningful because it is more comfortably understood. The ocean resists human control and thus, human-written narratives. It does not organize history into neat beginnings and endings or preserve events in ways that may be skewed or untruthful. As a result, humans are more comfortable trusting land-based narratives and perspectives because they align with familiar structures of meaning and authority that society is conditioned to value and view as necessary, while distrusting the ocean because it does not contain those rigid structures. Walcott’s depiction of Exodus directly confronts this bias that Roorda introduces by separating the biblical story’s symbolic, land-based narrative from the ocean’s physical holdings of bodies and bones, and thus objective memories. Where the Bible frames the drowning of the Egyptians as a necessary step in the divine escape, the ocean preserves the physical remains of that event without religious interpretation or meaning. The ocean refuses to be manipulated by human-written agendas or narratives and instead shows only the objective truth, and it does not allow humans to distance themselves from or justify suffering. Raw histories are not turned into metaphors, but rather held within coral, bone, and sediment, as Walcott describes. By trusting land and religious propaganda over the ocean, humans try to protect themselves from confronting the full weight of historical truth and violence. Roorda exposes humans’ selective attention to the ocean as he writes, “They relentlessly hunt sea creatures, taking 90 million tons of fish from it annually. They use it as a highway, with 100,000 ships at sea right now. They study it, find inspiration in it, play on it, and fight over it” (Roorda 3). Humans rely heavily on the ocean for transportation, food, and cultural inspiration, yet ironically exploit it and selectively choose to ignore the need to care for the ocean. Walcott further adds to the conversation of human selectivity as a fallacy in perspective, showing that what humans dismiss as unstable or lacking in history is in fact the space where history is preserved the most honestly. In doing so, the poem along with Roorda’s work reveal that human reliance on land-based narratives is not rooted in the desire for truth, but in comfort, control, and the need to tell stories that affirm human values.

 In Walcott’s representation of the Song of Solomon, a book about marriage and poetic love, he flips the romantic narrative with descriptions of “white cowries clustered like manacles / on the drowned women, / and those were the ivory bracelets / of the Song of Solomon” (ln. 20-23). The poet’s mention of drowned women chained with manacles could be referring to the slave trade where many slaves died in transportation overseas, once again associating human and ocean elements by comparing cowries to the chains. The typically beautiful and romantic images of “white cowries” and “ivory bracelets” represent bondage, definitely not poetic love, in this poem. By flipping the theme of the Song of Solomon, Walcott is contrasting Biblical stories with historical reality, or idealistic love versus slavery. The ocean preserves the bodies, and therefore real history. The poet thus paints the ocean as not only a mere vessel that preserves stories, but also harsh truth, no matter how buried. 

After chronologically describing Lamentations, Walcott shifts his poem to the New Testament with the lines, “the spires /  lancing the side of God / as His son set, and that was the New Testament” (ln. 56-58).  Biblically, the New Testament begins with the emergence of Jesus Christ, who was crucified. The imagery of spires piercing the “side of God” is reminiscent of how when Jesus was on the cross, Roman soldiers pierced his side with spears to see if he had died yet. The images of God’s son setting can have a double meaning. It can represent Jesus, the son, dying on the cross, but also the sun literally setting, thus bringing about a new day in history and narrating an end and beginning simultaneously. Waves enact “progress,” not because they advance but because they erase and renew with every break, and they become the mechanism and vessel through which human stories are submerged and remade. This pushes the biblical imagery toward a reflection on historical time itself, how events are layered, repeated, forgotten, and preserved beneath the surface. Walcott characterizes these sequence of events as “waves’ progress,” once again connecting the sea to human history and stories. The pun on “son/sun” links Biblical narrative to the natural flow of time, suggesting that endings and beginnings, written through the imagery of crucifixion and sunset, are layered within the ocean’s depths. Waves enact “progress” not by moving forward but by continually erasing and rearranging the world’s surface, mirroring the ongoing process by which human histories and stories are written, buried, and re-told.

Walcott’s rejection of linear progress through the image of waves is further explained by Steve Mentz’s concept of how language is a key factor in terracentrism. In the preface to Ocean, Mentz argues that terrestrial thinking is too limited, a problem caused by the language that humans use, for example “progress,” “ground,” and “field.” “Progress” assumes that history moves in a straight line toward continuous improvement or resolution, however Mentz proposes the use of “flow” instead, a term that emphasizes circulation, repetition, and transformation rather than linear advancement. “Thinking in terms of cyclical flows rather than linear progress makes historical narratives messier, more confusing, and less familiar. These are good things” (Mentz xvi). Here, he argues that history and advancement do not come in the commonly accepted form of regularity and standardization, but rather in a more fluid, unpredictable way like the flow of the ocean and waves. These metaphors contrast from the land-centered experience, where everything appears solid and movement can be measured. Ocean “flow” does not move toward a fixed endpoint at the end of a linear path, but rather it moves through cycles and waves. Walcott’s description of “waves’ progress” mirrors Mentz’s concept because the waves do not represent improvement or forward movement in the traditional, human sense, but rather display change through constant breaking, erasing, and reshaping of the surface. Thus, Mentz’s claim supports Walcott’s poem in that oceanic thinking is more realistic and flexible than terrestrial metaphors by refusing clarity and linear-based “progress.” Mentz writes, “The blue humanities name an ocean-infused way to reframe our shared cultural history. Breaking up the Anthropocene means reimagining the anthropogenic signatures of today’s climactic disasters as a dynamic openings” (Mentz xviii). In order to address true history, the ocean cannot be written out of it, and history itself cannot be viewed as a linear timeline, but rather as something “dynamic.” History, similar to water, does not stay put, but rather it builds as time goes on, distorts, and is reremembered. Mentz’s framework helps explain how Walcott’s imagery not only emphasizes the ocean as a keeper of history, but actively describes how history itself moves.

Ultimately, “The Sea is History” by Derek Walcott uses heavy Biblical allusions and connections between humans and nature in order to further the purpose of depicting the ocean as a vessel preserving truth and history, which is supported by Eric Roorda and Steve Mentz’s works exposing terracentrism and human-centered narratives. 

Works Cited

Roorda, Eric Paul, editor. The Ocean Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Duke University Press, 2020.

Mentz, Steve. Ocean. Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. ProQuest Ebook Central, ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/sdsu/detail.action?docID=6036857.