L’homme et la mer

The sea has exerted a profound fascination on man, it lifts him up and carries him along. Many novelists, poets, playwrights, short story writers, artists have tried to capture its essence in their works. The sea that attracts and repels, that protects and threatens, that inspires and terrifies… Many works recall the fragile balance that exists between man and nature and invite us to reflect on the latter's place on the planet.

Since Homer's Odyssey (8th century BC), man and the sea have been regularly and intrinsically linked in literature. Herman Melville, Joseph Conrad and Ernest Hemingway have particularly illuminated the plural relationships that are woven between them.
In Moby-Dick (1851), Herman Melville describes Captain Ahab's obsessive quest to defy the power of the sea, embodied by the white whale. In Heart of Darkness (1899), Joseph Conrad explores the darkness of the sea and the human soul, while in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1869-70), Jules Verne depicts the struggle of man against nature as a watermark in his story, a theme that can be found in Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea (1952).

The sea still exerts the same fascination for today's authors. Jean-Marie Gustave le Clézio places it at the center of an initiatory journey in Celui qui n’avait jamais vu la mer, from the collection Mondo et autres histoires (1978). Alessandro Baricco tries to identify and conceptualize it in Océan mer (1993). Laurent Gaudé tells us about the border sea in Eldorado (2006). Chantal Thomas takes us on a magnificent inner dive with her Journal de nage (2022).

Today, faced with environmental crises, Man thinks, or must necessarily rethink, his relationship with the Sea. It is up to him to preserve this essential source of life by adopting more sustainable practices, protecting marine biodiversity and engaging in the fight against pollution. The challenge is considerable. Literature is a valuable ally in meeting it.