All 26 entries tagged Poetics
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May 21, 2008
epic to epigram
a lost love narrowed from epic to epigram (4.XXXIV.i).
Perhaps a reference to the Great Plains and the Native Americans who populated them. The mid-nineteenth century acceleration of American expansion has effectively destroyed the epic landscape and Native American way of life – all that is left is a verse on a tombstone. Ironically, an epigram is typically witty, and is therefore an unsuitable legacy of the genocide of the Native American race.
Amanda Hopkins
21 May 2008 14:16
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Tags: Cherokee Choctaw Colonisalism Context Dispossession Epic To Epigram Epic Tradition North America Peoples Poetics Sioux Usa
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July 09, 2007
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
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not Rome but home
like another Aeneas,/founding not Rome but home (7.LX.i).
Compare Aeneas' flight from Troy and journey in Aeneid 1. Aeneas flees with a symbol of the past (Anchises), the future (Ascanius) and his culture (figurines of the gods). Likewise, Achille attempts to flee with his own culture (his fishing boat), and a strong symbol of his past (Philoctete, and his freshly healed wound).
Amanda Hopkins
09 Jul 2007 14:07
| Tags: Achille Aeneas Aeneid Characters Dispossession Epic Tradition Fishing Identity & Naming Not Rome But Home Philoctete Poetics
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the sea was life
the sea had to live,//because it was life (7.LX.i).
Walcott uses the sea as a metaphor for life itself, and the permanence of life; note the last line of the poem.
Amanda Hopkins
09 Jul 2007 14:04
| Tags: Poetics The Sea Was Life Water
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click of a Cyclops
the scream of a warrior losing his only soul/to the click of a Cyclops, the eye of its globing lens (1.59.iii).
The single lens of the camera is likened to the single eye of the Cyclops (Polyphemos) from Odyssey 9 (cf. 'taking/his soul with their cameras', 1.I.i).
Amanda Hopkins
09 Jul 2007 13:43
| Tags: Click Of A Cyclops Epic Tradition Mythology Odyssey Poetics Tourism
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sough
sough (1.59.i).
The word can mean 'A rushing or murmuring sound' and 'A small gutter for draining off water' (Bib:OED), so it is, perhaps, a pun.
Amanda Hopkins
09 Jul 2007 13:42
| Tags: Glossary Poetics Sough
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epic erased written
It was an epic where every line was erased//yet freshly written (7.LIX.i).
A comment on the oral epic tradition? Myths/stories would be slightly altered through each oral transmission as they were passed on.
Amanda Hopkins
09 Jul 2007 13:40
| Tags: Epic Erased Written Epic Tradition Mythology Poetics
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hotel
hotel (7.LVII.i).
St Lucia itself is represented as a hotel, as tourism has appropriated the coastline.
Amanda Hopkins
09 Jul 2007 13:17
| Tags: Hotel Poetics St Lucia Tourism
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July 06, 2007
no Homeric shadow
no Homeric shadow (6.LIV.ii).
Here particularly, although it occurs elsewhere in the text, the image of the shadow represents for the Narrator both the influence of classical epic on the text and its effect on his life.
Amanda Hopkins
06 Jul 2007 16:19
| Tags: Characters Epic Tradition No Homeric Shadow Poetics Walcott The Narrator
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mother sea
Mer was both mother and sea (6.XLV.iii).
In French mer denotes 'sea' and is phonologically similar to mère denoting 'mother'. Here Walcott is linguistically associating natural imagery with the impact of colonialisation as he personifies the French tongue as standing for 'both mother and sea'. Thus the island has been bound by the tongue of the possessors. This pairing of sea and mother also parallels Thetis in the Iliad, who is both a sea-nymph and Achilleus' mother.
Amanda Hopkins
06 Jul 2007 15:57
| Tags: Colonialism Epic Tradition Languages Mother Sea Poetics Water Women
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