War, Violence, Poetry

Abstract

Otherness is not necessarily traumatic or violent, but, as chapter 5 suggested, it can be a matter of translation and cultural encounter or cultural translation. Sometimes otherness are involved with travel and exploration that is peaceful and sometimes with conflict and invasion. Sometimes otherness occurs within a person or culture or between similar ones, or, as chapters 4 and 5 discussed, distant ones like the cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Americas or of the Chinese. This chapter will stay mainly within Europe or in settler cultures, but it also provides other points of view. Even within cultures in Europe or within those based on European languages, there has been great change in languages. The crisis of war and violence bring other changes. The otherness from within can be even more surprising and even shocking than that from without.