关键词: 卡茂·布拉思韦特, 潮汐辩证法, 加勒比, 世界文学, 海洋化重构

Abstract: For decades, world literature studies have been dominated by continental-centrism, linear historical frameworks, and Western paradigms, with oceanic spaces including islands, and their interconnected, fluid, and cyclical experiences being marginalized. Kamau Brathwaite, a Barbadian poet and scholar, developed the concept of tidalectics rooted in the Caribbean’s unique historical and cultural context. Based on the rhythmic and cyclical patterns of the ocean, he replaced the linear logic of progressivism and binary opposition with the ebb and flow of the tides, providing a groundbreaking perspective for understanding such experiences as colonial expansion, slave trade, coolie traffic, transoceanic migration, and creolization in the Global South. Brathwaite’s theoretical ideas have emerged from his literary practice. This paper, focusing on his representative works, The Arrivants: A New World Trilogy and Barabajan Poems, explores how Brathwaite writes, constructs and applies the theory of tidalectics through poetry, and how he redefines world literature as a dynamic production process within cyclical conceptions of time and transoceanic networks of relation. This oceanic reconstruction of world literature not only deconstructs its linear circulation and hierarchical system but also offers a decentralized, relational theoretical paradigm grounded in the experiences of the Global South.

Key words: Kamau Brathwaite, tidalectics, the Caribbean, world literature, oceanic reconstruction