The Island Complex and the Construction of a Madeiran Hyperidentity: Nesological Mythology, Diasporas and Returns

Abstract

Mythical, mythifying and myth-making discourse is a primordial method of knowing the world, associated with the birth of culture, and has been a pillar-builder of the roots of civilisations. We could be led to believe that mythical thinking and its method of constructing interpretative visions of reality are cultural data from a distant past fixed in Classical Antiquity. Nothing could be more misleading. Mythical discourse is a permanent feature of human cultures, metaphorising itself in each era and context right up to the present day, where we see it recreated in today’s sophisticated ability to create myths through the advanced techniques of advertising and marketing.
The island of Madeira was first “known” and referred to in mythical discourse, located in the Atlantic chain of the Fortunate Isles, which the Middle Ages recreated in their imagined travel narratives, with a greater or lesser degree of reality. This imaginary, in fact, populated the worldview of the late-medieval and early modern navigators who landed on these island territories and made their discovery official. It is therefore not surprising that the first writings describing the “discovered” Madeira are modelled, in their most distinctive characteristics, on the grammar of the mythical imaginary in which it was classically situated.
While it is true that the progressive humanisation of Madeira Island geography has led to the disenchantment and demythologisation of this island space, with the shock of reality and the hardships of settlement, there has also been a singular process of re-enchantment of Madeira in the production of early modern discourses on the construction of Madeira’s cultural identity. The possibilities of the myth-making discourse were utilised to build a unique identity for the people and the space inhabited by this archipelago in the middle of the Atlantic.
It is these processes of mythification, demythification and remythification that we will observe and critically analyse, working on their hermeneutics in the wake of mythocriticism. We will analyse the uses and meanings of the myth-making discourses of the authors who wanted to give Madeira a unique place in the history of the Atlantic islands and a pivotal role as a relevant protagonist in the modern movement that led to the globalisation in which we live today.
The mythological re-signification of representations of Madeira, its uniqueness, and its role in the history of the construction of the new global world will shape Madeiran culture and mentality, with the development of what we call a hyper-identity complex, intrinsically linked to the island complex.

Keywords: Madeira; Myth; Identity Discourses; Atlantic; Globalisation.