SOURCE: "The Subject and the Intimate Other: Woman as Tu," in "Engagement" and the Language of the Subject in the Poetry of Aimé Césaire, University of Florida Press, 1980, pp. 65-73.

In the following essay, Scharfman provides a semantic analysis of the role of women in Césaire 's poetry.

 … là où les femmes rayonnent de langage….
Aimé Césaire, "Prophétie" 

[In Cahier] the textual intervention of woman as "tu" can have major consequences for the subject's definition of itself. Woman is an essential figure in Césaire's poetry, and there are certain lyrical texts that could qualify as "love poems." But in speaking of woman here, we are not addressing an erotic, archetypal, or even potentially political figure. We are concerned, rather, with examining the signifier that represents her, the "tu" that appears in tandem with the speaking subject itself. The presence of the "tu" is...