Caught in a Bad Romance: Sexual and Natural Imagery in Cesaire's Notebook of a Return to my Native Land

Throughout his poem Notebook of a Return to my Native Land, Aime Cesaire conflates imagery of the body and the earth. Often, this imagery is violent and unsettling--Cesaire typically describes the body and the earth as marred, distorted, injured, and diseased. However, while this motif of the afflicted earth and body is prominent, it is contrasted by Cesaire's simultaneous employment of sexual and reproductive imagery, a contrast that reflects the poem's ebb-and-flow between an uninhibited hopefulness and a profound depression. The following passage offers an example of this erotic imagery Cesaire uses:

 Based on diction alone, the sexual connotations of this passage are apparent--coming, heaving, plunging, "cracking the shell of the sea"--these words all evoke sex, yet, they are placed in the context of a description of nature, so again, we see this conflation of natural/earthly and bodily imagery. This selection culminates in a more explicit description of sex and reproduction, perhaps in a way that is intended to mimic the buildup of sexual activity toward orgasm and thus the actual act of reproduction: "let the ovaries of the water come where the future stirs in its testicles/let the wolves come who feed in the untamed openings of the body at the hour when my moon and/your sun meet at the ecliptic inn." In this first line, the act of reproduction is defined rather mechanically through nature imagery. Cesaire enjoins the "ovaries of the water" to "come" where "the future stirs in its testicles," in an image that parallels the act of fertilization and the swimming around of sperm cells (future humans) in the male reproductive organs. He also describes the "hour when my moon/and your sun meet at the ecliptic inn." His use of personal pronouns in these lines makes this a uniquely intimate moment in the text, as Cesaire describes a sexual tryst between himself and the reader, through, of course, the natural imagery of the moon and the sun eclipsing.
While much of this sexual and reproductive imagery can be interpreted as a rare moment in the text where Cesaire describes the earth as beautiful, fruitful, and lively--as opposed to disease-stricken, barren, and dead or dying--this dichotomy, between the earth's life and death, manifests itself when Cesaire uses this natural imagery to identify afflictions related to reproduction and to distort and "uglify" the sexual imagery within this selection. Cesaire mentions a "cynocephalus," which is a human with a dog's head, a mythic creature whose roots are in the ancient Egyptian and Greek traditions but whose character has been preserved and implemented in literature by a wide range of cultural groups throughout history. Cesaire's inclusion of the "cynocephalus" in this passage reveals an instance of nature and reproduction gone awry--it implies sex between two different species, an unnatural or forced marriage of two entities that are naturally conflicted, and/or some kind of reproductive failing on the part of the cynocephalus's parents. This cynocephalus seems to be revisited in the poem's final lines, where Cesaire writes "let the wolves come who feed in the untamed openings of the body" So perhaps the cynocephalus is a result of these wolves coming and "feeding" in the "untamed openings of the body" during sex/reproduction between two other people. In the  line following the cynocephalus reference, Cesaire writes, "let the lotus bearer of the world come," which poses an interesting juxtaposition between the lotus flower, typically regarded as a symbol of purity, and the action of "coming," or orgasm. It seems that Cesaire is calling for the "deflowering" of the world's "lotus bearer," whoever or whatever that may be. Lastly, the image describing sex as an eclipse--"at the hour when my moon and/your sun meet at the ecliptic inn"--can be interpreted as another instance of this distortion of sex/reproduction through natural imagery. An "eclipse" implies a blockage, or an obstacle. It disrupts vision, and casts shadows, thus warping and mangling perception.