"I Have Seen The Sea"
"I Have Seen The Sea"

Summary/Abstract: The sea is the measure of space. It makes the fundamental ratios of the world clear. “The unbroken surface of the sea is the largest plane in nature” (Ratzel 2010, 121). As Darwin had said seeing the endless bays of the Strait of Magellan: “as if they were leading beyond the borders of this world” (qtd. in Ratzel 2010, 121). This is the specific singularity of a sea view; the transcendent space factor most obviously present in immanence. Its surrounding the entire substance of the world, its agelessness, its “undefinability,” and at the same time its pervasive, elementary materiality make the sea the widest possible metaphor of existence. The sea may be the indicator, image, carrier of everything: of every type of multitude, and that of the sum of all diversities. This is also why in different texts the sea appears in its metaphorical rather than concrete meaning. The sea has always been a special topic of literature and the arts, among the numerous literary works dedicated to the sea emerging Herman Melville’s novel and Jules Michelet’s essay. They both have a view that is strikingly different from today’s common approach. In the twentieth century the man of European culture gradually prevails over the sea; metaphors of shipping have become metaphors of astronautics. The all-encompassing meaning of the sea was described with unmatchable concentration and, at the same time, unrivaled wealth of detail by J. L. Borges in his short story The Aleph.

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