Title: About Islands, Archipelagos, and Archipelagic Writing: Alexander von Humboldt’s Isle de Cube, Antilles en général

Abstract: Alexander von Humboldt’s manuscript Isle de Cube, Antilles en général can be read as the title of an entire archipelago of texts. Its radically open design is intriguing and gives us a sense of the ways in which this explorer of culture and nature modelled his writing but even more his thinking. His text miniatures encompass the political and social complexity of the Island World of the Caribbean in a relational and polylogical way. In combination with his Cuban maps and the Essai politique sur l’île de Cuba, this manuscript gives Humboldt a prominent place in Cuba’s 19th century literature.

Keywords: Alexander von Humboldt, Isle de Cube, Antilles en général, Cuban literature

Author: Ottmar Ette, Chair Professor, Romance Languages and Comparative Literature Department, Potsdam University, Potsdam, Germany.