The role of thesea in culture has been important for centuries, as people experience thesea in contradictory ways: as powerful but serene, beautiful but dangerous.[2] Human responses to the sea can be found in artforms includingliterature,art,poetry,film,theatre, andclassical music. The earliest art representing boats is 40,000 years old. Since then, artists in different countries and cultures have depicted the sea. Symbolically, the sea has been perceived as a hostile environment populated by fantastic creatures: theLeviathan of theBible,Isonade inJapanese mythology, and thekraken of lateNorse mythology. In the works of the psychiatristCarl Jung, the sea symbolises the personal and thecollective unconscious indream interpretation.
The sea and ships have been depicted in art ranging from simple drawings on the walls of huts inLamu to seascapes byJoseph Turner andDutch Golden Age painting. The Japanese artistKatsushika Hokusai created colourprints of the moods of the sea, includingThe Great Wave off Kanagawa. The sea has appeared in literature sinceHomer'sOdyssey (8th century BC). The sea is a recurring theme in theHaiku poems of the JapaneseEdo period poetMatsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉) (1644–1694).
The sea plays a major role inHomer'sepic poem theOdyssey, describing the ten-year voyage of the Greek heroOdysseus who struggles to return home across the sea, encountering sea monsters along the way. In the Middle Ages, the sea appears in romances such as theTristan legend, with motifs such as mythical islands and self-propelled ships. Pilgrimage is a common theme in stories and poems such asThe Book of Margery Kempe. From theEarly Modern period, theAtlantic slave trade andpenal transportation used the sea to transport people against their will from one continent to another, often permanently, creating strong cultural resonances, whileburial at sea has been practised in various ways since theancient civilisations of Egypt,Greece, andRome.
Contemporary sea-inspired novels have been written byJoseph Conrad,Herman Wouk, andHerman Melville; poems about the sea have been written bySamuel Taylor Coleridge,Rudyard Kipling andJohn Masefield. The sea has inspired much music over the centuries includingsea shanties,Richard Wagner'sThe Flying Dutchman,Claude Debussy'sLa mer (1903–1905),Charles Villiers Stanford'sSongs of the Sea (1904) andSongs of the Fleet (1910),Edward Elgar'sSea Pictures (1899) andRalph Vaughan Williams'A Sea Symphony (1903–1909).
Human reactions to thesea are found in, for example,literature,art,poetry,film,theatre, andclassical music, as well as inmythology and thepsychotherapeutic interpretation of dreams. The importance of the sea to maritime nations is shown by the intrusions it makes into their culture; its inclusion in myth and legend; its mention inproverbs andfolk song; the use of ships invotive offerings; the importance of ships and the sea ininitiation ceremonies and in mortuary rites; children playing with toy boats; adults makingmodel ships; crowds gathering at the launch of a new ship; people congregating at the arrival or departure of a vessel and the general attitude towards maritime matters.[3] Trade and exchange of ideas with neighbouring nations is one of the means by which civilizations advance and evolve.[4] This happened widely among the ancient peoples living in lands bordering theMediterranean Sea, as well as in India, China and other Southeast Asian nations.[5] TheWorld Oceans Day takes place every 8 June.[6]
Petroglyphs depicting boats made ofpapyrus are among rock art dating back 40,000 years on the shores of the Caspian Sea.[7]James Hornell studied traditional, indigenous watercraft and considered the significance of the "oculi" or eyes painted on the prows of boats which may have represented the watchful gaze of a god or goddess protecting the vessel.[8] The Vikings portrayed fierce heads with open jaws and bulging eyes at bow and stern of theirlongships to ward off evil spirits,[9] and the figureheads on the prows of sailing ships were regarded with affection by mariners and represented the belief that the vessel needed to find its way. The Egyptians placed figures of holy birds on the prow while the Phoenicians used horses representing speed. The Ancient Greeks used boars' heads to symbolise acute vision and ferocity while Roman boats often mounted a carving of a centurion representing valour in battle. In northern Europe, serpents, bulls, dolphins and dragons were customary used to decorate ships' prows and by the thirteenth century, the swan was commonly used to signify grace and mobility.[10]
Symbolically, the sea has long been perceived as a hostile and dangerous environment populated by fantastic creatures: the giganticLeviathan of theBible,[12] theshark-likeIsonade inJapanese mythology,[13][14] and the ship-swallowingKraken of lateNorse mythology.[15]
TheGreek mythology of the sea includes a complex pantheon of gods and other supernatural creatures. The god of the sea,Poseidon, is accompanied by his wife,Amphitrite, who is one of the fiftyNereids, sea nymphs whose parents wereNereus andDoris.[16] TheTritons, sons of Poseidon, who were variously represented with the tails of fish or seahorses, formed Poseidon's retinue along with the Nereids.[17] The mythic sea was further peopled by dangerous sea monsters such asScylla.[18] Poseidon himself had something of the shifting character of the sea, presiding not only over the sea, but also earthquakes, storms and horses.Neptune occupied a similar position in Roman mythology.[19] Another Greek sea-god,Proteus, specifically embodies the domain of sea change, the adjectival form "protean" meaning mutable, able to assume many forms. Shakespeare makes use of this inHenry VI, Part 3, whereRichard III boasts "I can add colors to the chameleon, Change shapes with Proteus for advantages".[20]
In Southeast Asia, the importance of the sea gave rise to many myths of epic ocean voyages, princesses on distant islands, monsters and magical fish lurking in the deep.[5] In Northern Europe, kings were sometimes givenship burials when the body was laid in a vessel surrounded by treasure and costly cargo and set adrift on the sea.[21] In North America, various creation stories have a duck or other creature dive to the bottom of the sea and bring up some mud out of which the dry land was formed.[22]Atargatis was a Syrian deity known as the mermaid-goddess and Sedna was the goddess of the sea and marine animals inInuit mythology.[23]In Norse mythologyÆgir was the sea god andRán, his wife, was the sea goddess whileNjörðr was the god of sea travel.[24] It was best to propitiate the gods before setting out on a voyage.[25]
In the works of thepsychiatristCarl Jung, the sea symbolizes the personal and thecollective unconscious indream interpretation:[26]
[Dream]By the sea shore. The sea breaks into the land, flooding everything. Then the dreamer is sitting on a lonely island.[Interpretation] The sea is the symbol of the Collective unconscious, because unfathomed depths lie concealed beneath its reflecting surface.
[Footnote] The sea is a favourite place for the birth of visions (i.e. invasions by unconscious contents).[26]
The sea and ships have been depicted in art ranging from simple drawings of dhows on the walls of huts inLamu[3] to seascapes byJoseph Turner. The genre ofmarine art became especially important in thepaintings of the Dutch Golden Age, with works showing theDutch navy at the peak of its military prowess.[27] Artists such asJan Porcellis,Simon de Vlieger,Jan van de Cappelle,Hendrick Dubbels,Willem van de Velde the Elder andhis son,Ludolf Bakhuizen andReinier Nooms created maritime paintings in a wide variety of styles.[27] The Japanese artistKatsushika Hokusai created colourprints of the moods of the sea, includingThe Great Wave off Kanagawa showing the destructive force of the sea at the same time as its ever-changing beauty.[1] The 19th century Romantic artistIvan Aivazovsky created some 6,000 paintings, the majority of which depict the sea.[28][29]
The sea has appeared inliterature since at least the time of theAncient Greek poetHomer who describes it as the"wine dark sea" (oînops póntos).[a] In hisepic poem theOdyssey, written in the 8th century BC,[31] he describes the ten-year voyage of the Greek heroOdysseus who struggles to return home across the sea after the war withTroy described in theIliad. His wandering voyage takes him from one strange and dangerous land to another, experiencing among other maritime hazards shipwreck, the sea-monsterScylla, the whirlpoolCharybdis and the islandOgygia of the nymphCalypso.[32]
The soldierXenophon, in hisAnabasis, told how he witnessed the roaming10,000 Greeks, lost in enemy territory, seeing the Black Sea fromMount Theches, after participating inCyrus the Younger's failed march against thePersian Empire in 401 BC.[33] The 10,000 joyfully shouted "Thálatta! Thálatta! "(Greek:Θάλαττα! θάλαττα!) — "The Sea! The Sea!"[34] The famous[34] shout has come to symbolise victory, national freedom, triumph over hardship, and more romantically the "longing for a return to the primal sea."[35]
The sea is a recurring theme in theHaikupoems of the leading JapaneseEdo period poetMatsuo Bashō (松尾 芭蕉) (1644–1694).[36]
Ptolemy, writing in hisGeographia in about 150 AD, described how the Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean were great enclosed seas and believed that a vessel venturing into the Atlantic would soon reach the countries of the East. His map of the then known world was remarkably accurate but from the fourth century onwards, civilisation suffered a setback at the hands ofbarbarian invaders and knowledge of geography took a backward step. In the seventh century,Isidore of Seville produced a "wheel map" in which Asia, Africa and Europe were arranged like segments in an orange, separated by the "Mare Mediterranean", "Nilus" and "Tanais" and surrounded by "Oceanus". It was not until the fifteenth century that Ptolemy's maps were used again andHenry the Navigator of Portugal initiated ocean exploration and maritime research. Encouraged by him, Portuguese navigators explored, mapped and charted the west coast of Africa and the Eastern Atlantic and this knowledge prepared the way for the great voyages of exploration that were to follow.[37]
Medieval literature offers rich encounters with the sea, as in the well-known romance of Tristan andThe Voyage of SaintBrendan. The sea acts as an arbiter of good and evil and the barrier of fate, as in the mercantilist fifteenth-century poemThe Libelle of Englyshe Polycye. Medieval romances frequently ascribe a prominent role to the sea. The originally Mediterranean family ofApollonius of Tyre romances use theOdyssean format of the extended sea voyage. The story may have influencedGuillaume Roi d'Angleterre andChaucer’sThe Man of Law's Tale. Other romances, such as theRomance of Horn, theConte del Graal ofChrétien de Troyes,Partonopeu de Blois or theTristan legend employ the sea as a structural feature and source of motifs: setting adrift, mythical islands, and self-propelled ships. Some of these maritime motifs appear in thelais ofMarie de France.[38][39][40] Many religious works written in the Middle Ages reflect on the sea. The ascetic sea desert (heremum in oceano) appears in Adomnán’sLife of Columba orThe Voyage of SaintBrendan, an entirely seaborne tale cognate with the Irishimmram or maritime pilgrimage tale.[b] The Old English poemThe Seafarer has a similar background. Sermons sometimes speak of the sea of the world and the ship of the Church, and moralistic interpretations of shipwreck and floods. These motifs in chronicles such as theChronica majora ofMatthew Paris, andAdam of Bremen’sHistory of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen. Similar motives are treated in Biblical paraphrases, e.g. the anonymous Middle English poemPatience, and pilgrimage narratives and poems such asThe Book ofMargery Kempe,Saewulf'sVoyage,The Pilgrims' Sea Voyage. Marian devotion created prayers to Mary as the Star of the Sea (stella maris), both as lyrics and as features in larger works likeJohn Gower'sVox Clamantis.[38][39]
William Shakespeare makes frequent and complex use of mentions of the sea and things associated with it.[41] The following, fromAriel's Song in Act I, Scene ii ofThe Tempest, is felt to be "wonderfully evocative", indicating a "profound transformation":[42]
Full fathom five thy father lies:
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Otherearly modern authors to have made use of the cultural associations of the sea includeJohn Milton in his poemLycidas (1637),Andrew Marvell in hisBermudas (1650) andEdmund Waller in hisThe Battle of the Summer Islands (1645). The scholar Steven Mentz argues that "the oceans .. figure the boundaries of human transgression; they function symbolically as places in the world into which mortal bodies cannot safely go".[43] In Mentz's view, the European exploration of the oceans in the fifteenth century caused a shift in the meanings of the sea. Whereas a garden symbolised happy coexistence with nature, life was threatened at sea: the ocean counterbalanced the purelypastoral.[43]
In modern times, the novelistJoseph Conrad wrote several sea-inspired books includingLord Jim andThe Nigger of the 'Narcissus' which drew onhis experience as a captain in the merchant navy.[44] The American novelistHerman Wouk writes that "Nobody, but nobody, could write about storms at sea like Conrad".[45] One of Wouk's own marine novels,The Caine Mutiny (1952), won thePulitzer Prize.[46]Herman Melville's 1851 novelMoby-Dick was described by the poetJohn Masefield as speaking "the whole secret of the sea".[47]
A large seabird, thealbatross, played a central part inSamuel Taylor Coleridge'sinfluential 1798 poemThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner, which in turn gave rise to the usage of albatross asmetaphor for a burden.[48] In his 1902 poemThe Sea and the Hills,Rudyard Kipling expresses the urge for the sea, and usesalliteration[49] to suggest the sea's sound and rhythms:[50] "Who hath desired the Sea?—the sight of salt water unbounded— The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?"[51]John Masefield also felt the pull of the sea in hisSea Fever, writing "I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky."[52] The ArgentineJorge Luis Borges wrote the 1964 poemEl mar (The Sea), treating it as something that constantly regenerates the world and the people who contemplate it, and that is very close to the essence of being human.[53]
Numerous books andfilms have takenwar at sea as their subject, often dealing with real or fictionalised incidents in the Second World War.Nicholas Monsarrat's 1951 novelThe Cruel Sea follows the lives of a group ofRoyal Navy sailors fighting theBattle of the Atlantic duringWorld War II;[54] it was made into a1952 film of the same name.[55] The novelistHerman Wouk, reviewing "five best nautical yarns", writes that "The Cruel Sea was a major best seller and became a hit movie starring Jack Hawkins. Its authenticity is unmistakable ... His description of a torpedoed crew, terrified, clinging to life rafts in the blackest of nights, is, indeed, too authoritative for comfort—we soon feel ourselves in that sea."[45]Anthony Asquith used a dramatised documentary style in his 1943 filmWe Dive at Dawn, whileNoël Coward andDavid Lean's 1942In Which We Serve combined information with drama.Pat Jackson's 1944Western Approaches was, unusually for the time, shot inTechnicolor, at sea in rough weather and sometimes actually in battle.Michael Powell andEmeric Pressburger's 1956The Battle of the River Plate tells a tale of "gentlemanly gallantry"[56] of the scuttling of theAdmiral Graf Spee. A very different message, of "duplicitous diplomacy [and] flawed intelligence"[56] is the theme ofRichard Fleischer,Toshio Masuda andKinji Fukasaku's $22 million epicTora! Tora! Tora! (1970). Depicting an earlier era of naval warfare in theage of sail,Peter Weir's 2003Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, based onPatrick O'Brian'sseries of Aubrey-Maturin novels.[56]
Submarine films likeRobert Wise's 1958Run Silent, Run Deep[56] constitute a distinctivesubgenre of thewar film, depicting the stress ofsubmarine warfare. The genre makes distinctive use of thesoundtrack, which attempts to bring home the emotional and dramatic nature of conflict under the sea. For example, in the 1981Das Boot, the sound design works together with the hours-long film format to depict lengthy pursuit withdepth charges and the many times repeated ping ofsonar, as well as the threatening sounds of adestroyer'spropeller and of an approachingtorpedo.[57]
A sailor's work was hard in the days of sail. When off duty, many sailors played musical instruments or joined in unison to singfolksongs such as the mid-eighteenth century balladThe Mermaid, a song which expressed the sailors' superstition that seeing amermaid foretold a shipwreck.[58] When on duty, there were many repetitive tasks, such as turning thecapstan to raise theanchor and heaving on ropes to raise and lower the sails. To synchronise the crew's efforts,sea shanties were sung, with a lead singer performing the verse and the sailors joining in the chorus.[59] In theRoyal Navy inNelson's time, thesework songs were banned, being replaced by the notes of afife orfiddle, or the recitation of numbers.[60]
The sea has inspired much music over the centuries. InOman, Fanun Al Bahr (Sea Music) is played by an ensemble with kaser, rahmani and msindodrums, s'halcymbals, tassa tin drums, and mismarbagpipes; the piece called Galfat Shobani plays through the work of renewing thecaulking of awooden ship.[61]Richard Wagner stated that his 1843 operaThe Flying Dutchman[62] was inspired by a memorable sea crossing fromRiga toLondon, his ship being delayed in the Norwegianfjords atTvedestrand for two weeks by storms.[63] TheFrenchcomposerClaude Debussy's 1903–1905 workLa mer (The Sea), completed atEastbourne on the English Channel coast, evokes the sea with "a multitude of water figurations".[64] Other works composed at about this time includeCharles Villiers Stanford'sSongs of the Sea (1904) andSongs of the Fleet (1910),Edward Elgar'sSea Pictures (1899) andRalph Vaughan Williams' choral work,A Sea Symphony (1903–1909).[65] The English composerFrank Bridge wrote an orchestral suite calledThe Sea in 1911, also completed at Eastbourne.[66]Four Sea Interludes (1945) is an orchestral suite byBenjamin Britten that forms part of his operaPeter Grimes.[67]
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Humans have gone to sea also for the specific purpose of transporting other humans. This has included forpenal transportation, such as from Britain to Australia;[68] theslave trade, including the post-1600Atlantic slave trade from Africa to the Americas;[69] and the ancient practice ofburial at sea.[70]
From around 1600 until theAmerican War of Independence, convicts sentenced to "transportation", often for minor crimes, were carried to America; after that, such convicts were taken to New South Wales, in what is now Australia.[71][72] Some 20% of modern Australians are descended from transported convicts.[73]The convict era has inspired novels, films, and other cultural works, and it has significantly shaped Australia's national character.[74]
In the Atlantic slave trade, enslaved people, mostly fromcentral andwestern Africa and usually sold by West Africans to European slave traders, were carried across the sea, mainly to theAmericas. The slave trade regularly used thetriangular trade route from Europe (with manufactured goods) to West Africa and on to the Americas (with slaves), and then back to Europe (with goods such as sugar).[75] The South Atlantic and Caribbean economies depended on a secure supply of labour for agriculture and manufacturing of goods to sell in Europe, and in turn the European economy depended in large part on the profits from the trade.[76] Some 12 million Africans arrived in the Americas, and many more died on the journey, powerfully influencing the culture of the Americas.[77][78]
The burial of entire or cremated bodies at sea has been practised by countries around the world since ancient times, with instances recorded from the ancient civilisations in Egypt, Greece, and Rome.[70] Practices vary by country and by religion; for example, the United States allows human remains to be buried at sea at least 3 nautical miles from land, and if the remains are uncremated the water must be at least 600 feet deep,[80] while inIslam burial by lowering a weighted clay vessel into the sea is permitted when a person dies on a ship.[81]
But as the shout became louder and nearer, and those who from time to time came up, began racing at the top of their speed towards the shouters, and the shouting continually recommenced with yet greater volume as the numbers increased, Xenophon settled in his mind that something extraordinary must have happened, so he mounted his horse, and taking with him Lycius and the cavalry, he galloped to the rescue. Presently they could hear the soldiers shouting and passing on the joyful word, "The sea! the sea!"
{{cite book}}:|work= ignored (help){{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)The following books are useful on many aspects of the topic.