All 5 entries tagged Penelope

History was Circe

History was Circe (1.XI.i).

Circe is for Penelope what is History for Maud: they detain their husbands from them, either in reality or in the mind.

Amanda Hopkins : 05 Jun 2008 06:16 |  Tags: Characters Context Dennis Plunkett History History Was Circe Maud Plunkett Odyssey Penelope |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

She had never felt more alone

She had never felt more alone (1.XI.i–iii).

Here Maud is very similar to Penelope: she is sewing, and above all she passes her time waiting for her husband to get back to her, to the real world in current history. Her husband is leaving the Great Wanderings in his imagination (cf 'wandering heart', 1.XI.iii, last line).

Amanda Hopkins : 05 Jun 2008 06:06 |  Tags: Characters Dennis Plunkett History Maud Plunkett Odyssey Penelope She Had Never Felt More Alone |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

hyphen stitched

her hyphen stitched its seam (7.LXIII.iii).

An idea common in epic texts, for example Penelope stitching her tapestry (The Odyssey) and Helen weaving her web (The Iliad). The creation of art by the characters parallels the creation of the text by Walcott. Here, the stitcher is the sea-swift, crossing the seas; the bird is presented as a 'hyphen' linking the continents, one of a variety of metaphorical references linking natural images with the practicalities of language, writing and typesetting used by Walcott (cf. e.g. 'asterisks of rain', 7.LXIV.i, and 'freshly written in sheets of exploding surf', 1.59.i).

Amanda Hopkins : 09 Jul 2007 16:07 |  Tags: Animals Epic Tradition Helen Of Troy Hyphen Stitched Iliad Odyssey Penelope Poetics Women |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Penelope

Amanda Hopkins : 06 Jul 2007 14:16 |  Tags: Characters Penelope |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

not Helen but Penelope

Not Helen now, but Penelope […] because he had not come back (3.XXIX.i).

Reference to Penelope who waited ten years for her husband Odysseus to return home after the Trojan War (Bib:4). This offers a direct comparison between Helen and Penelope, Odysseus' wife; where earlier Walcott has contrasted Helen with a bad wife (Klytaimestra), he is now comparing her to a good wife, Penelope.

Amanda Hopkins : 06 Jul 2007 14:14 |  Tags: Characters Epic Tradition Helen Helen Of Troy Klytaimestra Not Helen But Penelope Odyssey Penelope Women |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem