Cesaire has been read politically as a poet of revolutionary zeal since the 1960s. This collection, a retrospective of Cesaire's poetic production demonstrates the narrowness of earlier readings that grew out of the climate of Black Power influenced by the essays of Franz Fanon, another Martinican, who was largely responsible for the ambient view of Cesaire a generation ago. It is the first collection to translate "And the Dogs Were Silent" and "i, laminaria". "Lyric and Dramatic Poetry, 1946-82" locates the issues of Cesaire's struggle with an emerging postmodern vision, showing him to be a major figure in the conflict between tradition and contemporary cultural identity. In his introductory essay A.James Arnold engages Derrida dnd deconstruction to demonstrate by contrast the originality of Cesaire's retrospective critique of modernism.