Patricia ismond abandoning dead metaphors the caribbean phase of derek walcotts poetry 2001

Abandoning Dead Metaphors This page intentionally left blank Abandoning Dead Metaphors The Caribbean Phase of Derek Walcott's Poetry Patricia Ismond UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES PRESS Barbados • Jamaica • Trinidad and Tobago University of the West Indies Press 1A Aqueduct Flats Mona Kingston Jamaica W I ©2001 by The University of the West Indies Press All rights reserved Published 2001 05 04 03 CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA Ismond, Patricia Abandoning dead metaphors : the Caribbean phase of Derek Walcott's poetry / Patricia Ismond p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN: 976-640-107-1 Walcott, Derek - Criticism and interpretation West Indies - In literature I Title PR9272.9.W3Z694 2001 811.54 Cover illustration: Derek Walcott, Causeway., Pigeon Island The Project Helen Collection, St Lucia National Trust, Castries, St Lucia Set in Plantin Light 10/14 x 27 Book and cover design by Robert Harris E-mail: roberth@cwjamaica.com Printed in Canada In memory of my mother, Lilin, and Papa This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgements / viii Abbreviations / x Chapter One Introduction: The Caribbean Focus / Chapter Two Apprenticeship: Juvenilia to In a Green Night / 17 Chapter Three Abandoning Dead Metaphors: The Castaway and The Gulf / 43 Chapter Four Revolutionary Creed, Race, Politics and Society / 103 Chapter Five Another Life: Alter/Native Metaphors in Fulfilment / 140 Chapter Six Society and Nationhood in the Caribbean: Towards Another Life / 225 Notes / 281 Bibliography / 295 Index / 304 Acknowledgements Thanks are due to Derek Walcott and his publishers, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and Faber and Faber, for quotes from Walcott's books and essays; to Wilson Harris and his publishers, for use of material from The Guyana Quartet, and to Caribbean Quarterly for quotes from Harris's "History, Fable and Myth"; to Professor Edward Baugh, for the use of some of his sources in Memory as Vision: Another Life; to Stewart Brown, editor of The An of Derek Walcott, and his publisher for several references made to and quotes from that book; to Rei Terada and publisher, for use of material in her Derek Walcott's Poetry: American Mimicry, in my engagement with her critical perspective in that book; and to John Thieme and his publisher, for a similar use of material from his Derek Walcott; to Robert Hamner, for his quite comprehensive Walcott bibliography in Critical Perspectives on Derek Walcott) which proved invaluable I am indebted to Walcott, again, and his family, for providing me with relevant background information over the years I am also grateful to the Stanford Humanities Center of Stanford University for the fellowship that enabled me to begin this work; and to the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, my workplace, for the sensitive response of its administration to the problems and setbacks that sometimes interrupted its progress I am especially happy to express my gratitude to the following persons who read the manuscript and contributed to its improvement in various ways: Professor Gordon Rohleher, my colleague and friend, who picked out the gaps in the manuscript in its early stages and gave generously of his breadth of knowledge; Professor Mervyn Morris, for his sensitive and most encouraging viii Acknowledgements ix reading of the manuscript; Dr Pamela Collins, my friend, who extends so easily from her own area of expertise in agriculture to embrace the arts of language and literature; and Rawle Gibbons, who also contributed to the closing of some of the gaps in the work I am eternally grateful to the special friends whose encouragement and faith in the effort helped me bring it to completion: Trevor Prevatt, Dr Pamela Collins and Lawrence Scott I remain forever indebted to my sister Esther, whose love sustained and steadied me through it all Bibliography Primary Sources: Works by Derek Walcott Poetry and Plays 25 Poems Bridgetown, Barbados: Advocate, 1949; Port of Spain, Trinidad: Guardian Commercial Printery, 1948 Epitaph for the Young: XII Cantos Bridgetown, Barbados: Advocate, 1949 Poems Kingston, Jamaica: Kingston City Printery, 1951 Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes Bridgetown, Barbados: Advocate, 1952 In a Green Night: Poems 1948-1960 London: Jonathan Cape, 1962 Selected Poems New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1964 The Castaway London: Jonathan Cape, 1965 The Gulf and Other Poems London: Jonathan Cape, 1969 Published as The Gulf: Poems New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970 Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970; London: Jonathan Cape, 1972 Ti-Jean and His Brothers in Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970; London: Jonathan Cape, 1972 Another Life London: Jonathan Cape; New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973 Sea Grapes London: Jonathan Cape, 1976 The Joker of Seville and O Babylon! New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1978; London: Jonathan Cape, 1979 The Star-Apple Kingdom New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979 Remembrance and Pantomime New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1980 The Fortunate Traveller New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1981; London: Jonathan Cape, 1982 Midsummer New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; London: Faber and Faber, 1984 295 296 Bibliography Collected Poems 1948-1984 New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; London: Faber andFaber, 1986 Arkansas Testament New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1987 Omeros New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1990 The Bounty New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997 Tiepolo's Hound New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000 Essays, Publications in Periodicals, Other "The Poetry of George Campbell" Public Opinion Jamaica), 20 July 1957, "A Great Russian Novel" Review of The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov Sunday Guardian, 19 April 1964, 15 "The Figure of Crusoe" Typescript of lecture delivered at the University of the West Indies Open Lecture Series, St Augustine, Trinidad, 27 October 1965 "Leaving School" London Magazine 5, no (1965): 4-14 "Walcott on Walcott" Interview with Dennis Scott Caribbean Quarterly 14, nos and (March-June 1968): 77-82 "Meanings" Savacou (September 1970): 45-51 "What the Twilight Says: An Overture" Originally published in Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays., 1-40 New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970 "An Incident, an Epiphany" Typescript, 1972 "The Caribbean: Culture or Mimicry?" Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 16, no (February 1974): 3-13 "The Muse of History" Originally published in Is Massa Day Dead? edited by Orde Coombs, 1-27 New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1974 "On Choosing Port of Spain" In David Frost Introduces Trinidad and Tobago, edited by David Frost, 14-23 London: Andre Deutsch, 1975 "Any Revolution Based on Race Is Suicidal" Interview with Raoul Pantin Caribbean Contact 1, no (August 1979): 14, 16 Review of Beyond a Boundary by C.L.R James New York Times Book Review, 25 March 1984, 35 World of Ideas, no 137 Interview with Bill Moyers Public Affairs Television Inc., New York, November 1988 "Caligula's Horse" In After Europe, edited by Stephen Slemon and Helen Tiffin, 138^2 Sydney: Dangaroo Press, 1989 The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992 Conversations with Derek Walcott, edited by William Baer Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996 "The Sea Is History" In Frontiers of Caribbean Literature in English, edited by Frank Birbalsingh, 22-28 London: Macmillan Education, 1996 "Reflections on Omeros" The Poetics of Derek Walcott: Intertextual Perspectives, ed Gregson Davis, South Atlantic Review 96, no (Spring 1997): 229-46 Bibliography 297 What the Twilight Says New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998 Another Life MS One (prose version) University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica N.d Walcott Collection 1957-81: Poetry and Prose; Correspondence; Diaries and Memo Books University of the West Indies Library, St Augustine, Trinidad Secondary Sources Anthony, Fr Patrick "The Silent Revolution" Caribbean Contact 5, no (August 1977): 10-11 Baugh, Edward Derek Walcott: Memory as Vision: Another Life London: Longman, 1978 "Metaphor and Plainness in the Poetry of Derek Walcott" Literary Half-Yearly Y 11, no (1970): 47-58 "The West Indian Writer and His Quarrel with History" Tapia 7, no (20 February 1977): 6-7 Bobb, June Beating a Restless Drum: The Poetics ofKamau Brathwaite and Derek Walcott Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1998 Breslin, Paul " *I Met History Once but He Ain't Recognize Me': The Poetry of Derek Walcott" TriQuarterly 68 (Winter 1987): 168-83 Brodsky, Joseph "On Derek Walcott" New York Review of Books 30, no 17(10 November 1983): 39-41 Brown, Lloyd "Caribbean Castaway New World Odyssey: Derek Walcott's Poetry" Journal of Commonwealth Literature 11, no (December 1976): 149-59 West Indian Poetry London: Heinemann, 1984 Brown, Stewart, ed The Art of Derek Walcott Bridgend, Wales: Dufour, 1991 Burton, R.D.E "Derek Walcott and the Medusa of History" Caliban 3, no (1980): 3-48 Fabre, Michel " 'Adam's Task of Giving Things Their Name': The Poetry of Derek Walcott" New Letters 41, no (Fall 1974): 91-107 Figueroa, John "Some Subtleties of the Isle: A Commentary on Certain Aspects of Derek Walcott's Sonnet Sequence in Tales of the Islands" World Literatures Written in English 15, no (April 1976): 190-228 Goldstraw, Irma E A Bibliography of Published Poems 1944-1979 St Augustine, Trinidad: University of the West Indies, 1979 Hamner, Robert D., ed Critical Perspectives on Derek Walcott Washington: Three Continents Press, 1993 Derek Walcott New edition New York: Twayne, 1993 Heaney, Seamus "The Language of Exile" Parnassus: Poetry in Review 8, no (Fall-Winter 1979): 5-11 298 Bibliography Ismond, Patricia "Derek Walcott: The Development of a Rooted Vision (Poetry and Drama)" PhD thesis University of Kent, Canterbury, 1974 "Self-Portrait of an Island: St Lucia Through the Eyes of its Writers" Journal of West Indian Literature 1, no (October 1986): 59-73 "Walcott's Later Drama: From Joker to Remembrance" Review of International English Literature 16, no (July 1985): 89-101 "Walcott versus Brathwaite" Caribbean Quarterly 17, nos 3-4 (December 1971): 54-71 "Woman as Race-Containing Symbol in Walcott's Poetry" Journal of West Indian Literature 8, no (April 1999): 83-89 James, C.L.R "Here's a Poet who sees the Real West Indies" Review of In a Green Night Sunday Guardian, May 1962, Johnson, Lemuel A "Abeng: (Re) Calling the Body in (to) Question" In Out of the Kumbla, edited by Carole Boyce Davis and Elaine Savory Fido, 111-42 Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 1990 King, Bruce Derek Walcott and West Indian Drama Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992 Livingston, James "Derek Walcott: Poet of the New World" Paper delivered at the annual Conference of the National Council of Teachers of English, Las Vegas, Nevada, 26 November 1971 Morris, Mervyn "The Fortunate Traveller" In The Art of Derek Walcott, edited by Stewart Brown, 101-11 Bridgend, Wales: Dufour, 1991 : "Walcott and the Audience for Poetry" Caribbean Quarterly 14, nos 1-2 (March-June 1968): 7-24 Popovic, Caroline "Hail Mary" Caribbean Beat 13 (Spring 1995): 54-58 Review of Another Life Booklist 70 (1 September 1973): 25 Review of Another Life Choice 10 (September 1973): 986 Review of Another Life Virginia Quarterly Review 51 (Spring 1975): Iviii Rohlehr, Gordon "Withering into Truth: A Review of Derek Walcott's The Gulf and Other Poems" Trinidad Guardian, 10 December 1969 Taylor, Patrick The Narrative of Liberation Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989 Terada, Rei Derek Walcott's Poetry: American Mimicry Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992 Thieme, John Derek Walcott Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999 Wilson-Tagoe, Nana Historical Thought and Literary Representation in West Indian Literature Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1998 General Achebe, Chinua Hopes and Impediments: Selected Essays 1965—1987 London: Heinemann, 1988 Aristotle Poetics Trans Malcolm Heath Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1996 BibliographyY 299 Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin The Empire Writes Back London: Routledge, 1989 Bakhtin, M.M The Dialogic Imagination Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981 Baudelaire, Charles Les Fleurs du Mai Translated by Richard Howard Boston: David R 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Penguin, 1968 Carrington, Lawrence St Lucian Creole: A Descriptive Analysis of Its Phonology and Morpho-Syntax Hamburg: Helmut Buske, 1984 Cassirer, Ernst Language and Myth New York: Harper and Brothers, 1946 Cesaire, Aime The Collected Poetry Translated by Clayton Eshelman and Annette Smith Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983 Craven, Thomas, ed A Treasury of Art Masterpieces: From the Renaissance to the Present Day New York: Simon and Schuster, 1939 Defoe, Daniel Robinson Crusoe 1719 Reprint, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965 Deren, Maya Divine Horsemen New York: McPherson, 1970 Devas, Raymund A History of the Island of Grenada 1498-1796 Grenada: Carenage Press, 1974 Donne, John Selected Prose Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967 Easter, B.H A Guide to Morne Fortune, St Lucia Castries, St Lucia: St Lucia Archaeological and Historical Society, 1966 Eliot, T.S The Use of Poetry London: Faber and Faber, 1933 - Collected Poems 1909-1962 London: Faber and Faber, 1974 300 Bibliography 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32 Hill, Errol The Trinidad Carnival: Mandate for a National Theatre 1972 Reprint, London: New Beacon, 1997 Hingley, Ronald Nightingale Fever: Russian Poets in Revolution London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1982 Homer The Iliad Translated by Robert Fitzgerald London: Collins Harvill, 1985 The Odyssey Translated by A.T Murray Revised George E Dimock Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1995 Hudson, William Green Mansions 1904 Reprint, New York: Watts, 1966 Hughes, Ted Lupercal London: Faber and Faber, 1960 — Selected Poems 1957-1981 London: Faber and Faber, 1982 James, C.L.R Beyond a Boundary 1963 Reprint, London: Hutchinson, 1976 Jesse, Revd C Outlines of St Lucia's History Castries, St Lucia: St Lucia Archaeological and Historical Society, 1970 Joyce, James Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992 Ulysses Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1992 Kierkegaard, Soren Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death Translated by Walter Lowrie New York: Doubleday, 1954 Knight, Franklin W The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism New York: Oxford University Press, 1990 Lamming, George In the Castle of My Skin London: Michael Joseph, 1953 Of Age and Innocence London: Michael Joseph, 1958 The Pkasures ofExik London: Michael Joseph, 1960 Bibliography 301 Season of Adventure London: Michael Joseph, 1960 Lever, J.W The Elizabethan Love Sonnet London: Methuen, 1966 Levi, Barrel E Michael Manley: The Making of a Leader London: Andre Deutsch, 1989 Livingstone, Angela, ed Pasternak and Creativity Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985 Look Lai, Walton The Chinese in the West Indies, 1806-1995 Kingston, Jamaica: The Press, University of the West Indies, 1998 Lovelace, Earl The Dragon Can't Dance London: Andre Deutsch, 1979 Lowell, Robert Selected Poems London: Faber, 1965 Macmillan, Allister, ed The West Indies 1912 Reprint, London: W.H and L Collingridge, 1938 Malraux, Andre Psychology of Art Translated by Stuart Gilbert vols New York: Pantheon, 1949, 1950 Manley, Michael The Politics of Change London: Andre Deutsch, 1974 Up the Down Escalator Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1987 Marquez, Gabriel Garcia The Autumn of the Patriarch New York: Harper and Row, 1976 Marvell, Andrew Andrew Marvell: The Complete English Poems Edited by Elizabeth Story Donno New York: St Martin's Press, 1972 Mbiti, John African Religions and Philosophy New York: Doubleday, 1970 McKay, Claude Selected Poems New York: Bookman Associates, 1953 McKeon, Michael Origins of the English Novel 1600-1740 Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987 Milano, Paolo, ed The Divine Comedy In The Portable Dante, translated by L Binyon Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975 Nabokov, Vladimir The Gift Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1980 Naipaul, V.S The Middle Passage London: Andre Deutsch, 1962 The Mimic Men London: Penguin, 1969 Neruda, Pablo Selected Poems Translated by Anthony Kerrigan et al Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975 Nettleford, Rex Manley and the Politics of Jamaica Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1971 Pantin, Raoul Black Power Day Port of Spain, Trinidad: Hatuey Productions, 1990 Parry, J.H., P.M Sherlock, and A Maingot A Short History of the West Indies London: Macmillan, 1956 Pasternak, Boris "Safe Conduct" In Prose and Poems, edited by Stefan Schimanski, 11-126 London: Ernest Benn, 1959 Patterson, Orlando The Sociology of Slavery London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1967 302 Bibliography Paz, Octavio The Bow and the Lyre Translated by Ruth L.C Simms Austin: University of Texas Press, 1973 Pound, Ezra The Cantos of Ezra Pound London: Faber and Faber, 1964 Reddock, Rhoda, ed Ethnic Minorities in Caribbean Societies St Augustine, Trinidad: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1996 Reid, Vic New Day 1949 Reprint, London: Heinemann, 1973 The Horses of the Morning Kingston, Jamaica: Caribbean Authors Publishing Co., 1985 Rewald, John, Frances Weitzenhoffer, and Irene Gordon Studies in Post Impressionism New York: Harry N Abrams, 1986 Rohlehr, Gordon Calypso and Society in Pre-Independence Trinidad Port of Spain, Trinidad: G Rohlehr, 1990 The Shape of that Hurt Port of Spain, Trinidad: Longman, 1992 St Omer, Garth A Room on the Hill London: Faber and Faber, 1968 — Shades of Grey London: Faber and Faber, 1968 Nor Any Country London: Faber and Faber, 1969 J-, Black Bam and the Masqueraders London: Faber and Faber, 1972 Schofield, Malcolm, and Martha Craven Nussbaum, eds Language and Logos: Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982 Seymour, A.J Selected Poems Guyana: BG Lithographic Co., 1965 Shakespeare, William The Tempest In Riverside Shakespeare, edited by G Blakemore Evans Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974 Sherlock, Philip Norman Manky London: Macmillan, 1980 Simmons, Harold "Notes on Folklore in St Lucia" In louanaloa, edited by Edward Brathwaite, 41^49 Castries, St Lucia: Department of Extra-Mural Studies, 1963 Sitkoff, Harvard The Struggle for Black Equality 1954-1980 New York: Hill and Wang, 1981 Smith, M.G., Roy Augier, and Rex Nettleford The Rastafari Movement in Kingston, Jamaica Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1960 Stephens, Evelyn Huber, and John D Stephens Democratic Socialism in Jamaica: The Political Movement and Social Transformation in Dependent Capitalism London: Macmillan, 1986 Thomas, Dylan Collected Poems 1934-1953 Edited by Walford Davies and Ralph Maud London: J.M Dent and Sons, 1988 Thomas, J.J Froudacity: West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude London: T.F.Unwin, 1889 Traherne, Thomas Centuries of Meditation London: Dobbel, 1908 Bibliography 303 Warner-Lewis, Maureen Guinea's Other Suns Dover, Mass.: Majority Press, 1991 Whitman, Walt Leaves of Grass New York: Bantam, 1983 Williams, Denis Other Leopards London: Heinemann, 1963 Yeats, W.B Selected Poetry Edited by Timothy Webb Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1991 Index Aboriginals, 62, 270 reference fundamental, 210 Achebe, Chinua, 57, 284 Aesthetic, 96 black, 104, 117 maturing, 188 Africa, 5, 17, 276 religions, 33 African maroons, 62 African revival, 115 Afro-Christian tradition, 109 "Air", 61, 177 Alcee, Andreuille, 140, 142, 184 home, 191 Alexander, Mary L., 293 Ambiguity, 13,41, 149 Yeatsian, 190 American dream, 132 American Indians, 133, 134 crime against, 134 Trail of Tears, 135 American Mimicry (1992), Amerindians, 63, 64 Amnesia history as, 5, 58, 223 imagery, 52 Anancy-trickster motif, 114 Ancestry, 7, 110 race and, 116 "Anna Awaking", 183, 270 The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory (1992), Another Life (1973), 5, 6, 9, 13 acclaim for, 140 artistic odyssey, 144 criticism of, 145 fundamental principle for, 143 landscape imagery, 12 opening sequences, 147 polyphonic style, 224 psychological realism of, 180 semantics on whiteness, 154 St Lucian setting, prominence of, 149 Walcott's purpose for, 150 "Any Revolution Based on Race Is Suicide", 130 Arawak, Christopher, 293 Arawaks, 62 Aristotelian school, 56 The Arkansas Testament, 3,9 Caribbean identity in, Art, 154 Assassinations, 133 Assimilation, 111 "At Last", 226 Babylonian bondage, 54 Baer, William, 281 Bakhtin, M.M., 289 Barbados, 36 304 Index Baugh, Edward^ 6, 8, 12, 13, 140, 281, 288, 289, 290, 292 Benitez-Rojo, Antonio, 13, 282 Bennet, Joan, 38 Black, C.V., 294 Black aesthetic, 104, 117 Black America, 109 Caribbean world vs., 123 Black Americans second-class status, 122 spirituals, 54 Black Panther movement, 124, 129 Black Power, 103, 104 Black radicalism, 235, 240 Blok, Aleksandr, 236 "Blues", 120 Borges, Jorge Luis, 11, 96, 97, 98, 99, 107, 285 Brathwaite, Edward, 11, 116-117, 271, 273, 286 Breslin, Paul, 145, 221, 289 Brodber, Erna, 293 Brodsky, Joseph, 95, 193, 285 Brown, Lloyd, 281, 285 Brown, Stewart, 38, 283 "The Bush", 89 Calypso, 138 Campbell, George, 138, 147, 289 Caribbean identity, Caribbean New World, Caribs, 62, 63 final act of resistance, 171 in Grenada, 166, 170, 171 Greeks at Thermopylae and, 178 Carnival celebration, 136 as a dance of death, 137 Carpentier, Alejo, 11, 84, 108, 284 Cassirer, Ernst, 56, 284 "The Castaway", 77 The Castaway (1965), 6, 43, 139 Castries, St Lucia, 123 Castro, Fidel, 119,259 Cesaire, Aime, 11, 107, 108 Children, 75-76 indifference, 76 305 Christianity, 38 ahuman influences, 65 archetypes, 248 bourgeois culture, 72 creative redeployment of traditions, 40 failure, 64 iconography, 46 imagery, 207 imperialism and, 259 indigenization, 158 "A City's Death by Fire", 27, 179 Civil Rights era, 53 Colonial dependence syndrome, 122 Cosimo de Chretien, 29, 30, 31 Craft, landscape and, 34 Craven, Thomas, 147, 183, 289 Creole(s),31,32 gaiety, 138 Creole poetics, Creolization, 8, 9, 11, 197 indigenization and, 113 Cross-culturalism, 8, 9, 11, 220 Crows over the Wheatfield, 164 Crusoe-Friday theme, 47 "Crusoe's Journal", 2, 46 Cultural void, 49 Culture, basis of, 117 Dante, 21, 118, 186 Death, 154 DeFoe, Daniel, 283 Derek Wakott (1981) ,8 Derek Walcott (1999), Deren,Maya, 114,287 Devas, Raymond P., 289 Dialects, 31, 32 "The Divided Child", 147 The Divine Comedy, 24, 186 Divine union, 126 Don Juan, 14 Donne, John, 27,37, 283 Donoghue, Denis, 50, 284 Dream on Monkey Mountain, 51, 61, 86, 141 characterization strategy, 230 white goddess theme, 190 306 Index "Ebb", 94 El Dorado, 63 "Elegy", 120, 131, 134 Eliot, T.S., 117, 213, 222 Epic-heroic tradition, 5, 54, 174, 215 Epic mode, 145 Epitaph for the Young (1949), 19, 20-21 "Exile", 76 Fabre, Michel, 281 "The Falls", 93 "A Far Cry from Africa", 6, 17, 41 Fete mentality, 139 Fighting Fifth, 146, 170 feathers, 171 Figueroa, John, 31, 283 "The Figure of Crusoe", 4, 47, 141 "The Flight Anchors in Castries Harbour", 242 "The Flock", 79 Folk tradition, 118 "Forest of Europe", 81 "For the Altarpiece of the Roseau Valley Church, Saint Lucia", 12 The Fortunate Traveller (1982), 1, 230 "For Whom the Bell Tolls", 41 French creole, 3, Froude, James Anthony, 10, 61, 64, 284 Gaspard, David B., 290 Gaugin, Paul, 163, 165, 207 Georgetown, Guyana, 92, 94 Glissant, Edouard, 195 "The Glory Trumpeter", 121, 125, 129 "Goats and Monkeys", 129 Gordon, George William, 264 Grassroot values, 247 Graves, Robert, 26 Greek heroes, 150 Greek mythology, 151 In a Green Night (1962), 18-19 Grenada, 16, 146, 166 Guevara, Ernesto "Che", 130 "The Gulf', 124, 131 The Gulf (1969), 6, 77, 91, 131, 139, 141 "Guyana", 77, 84, 89 Haiti, 263 Haitian Vodun, 114 Hamlet, 24 Hamner, Robert, 8, 288 Hardy, Thomas, 102 Harris, Wilson, 11, 84, 85, 86-87, 244, 285, 287 Heraclitean concept, 93 Hirsch, Edward, History, 6, 249 aboriginal, 7, 270 amnesiac, 5, 58, 233 cumulative, 214 epic-heroic, 215 muse, 200 personification of, 231 pre-Columbian, 7, 222 progress and, 244 History-in-time, 222 "Homage to Gregorias", 159 "Homecoming: Anse La Raye", 70, 73-77 Homer> 14, 24 Hudson, William Henry, 84, 285 Hughes, Ted, 78, 79, 285 Hugo, Victor, 29 Humanism, 40 Human struggle paradigm, 166 The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 29 Hybrid identity, 109 Hybridization, 8-9, 11 Ibsen, Henrik, 214 Iconography, 189, 214, 215 Identity, 42 anticolonial quest, hybrid, 109 regional, 112 Iliad, 24 Imagery, 69, 82 Immanence, 198 Imperialism, 231, 244 Christianity and, 259 In a Green Night (1962), 18 Indigenization, 109, 111, 112 of Christmas, 197 creolization and, 113 Index Institutionalized racism, 122 Irises, 164 Ismond, Patricia, 287, 294 Jamaica, 40, 228 history, 258 James, C.L.R., 26, 111, 251, 282, 283 Johnson, Lemuel A., 294 Joyce, James, 21, 24 Judaeo-Christian tradition, 10, 22, 113, 121, 184 Kaieteur Falls, Guyana, 95, 170 Keats, John, 187 Kele, 33 Kennedy, John, 132 Kenya, 17 Kierkegaard, Soren, 203, 291 King, Martin Luther, 103 Lamming, George, 48, 50, 282 Landscape, 12, 14, 26 craft and, 34 definition, 60 identification of beloved with, 194 as negation, 57 primal signals of nature in, 271 "Laventille", 6, 58, 70 Lawrence, Thomas Alva, 155 "Leaving School", 23, 179 "A Letter from Brooklyn", 35, 36 Levi, Barrel E., 269, 294 de Lima, Clara Rose, 290 Linguistic progress, 98 Livingston, James, Livingstone, Angela, 290 "The Lost Federation", 227 Love, 154 idealization of, 189 landscape and, 194 metaphors, 182 mortality as necessary burden, 188 "Love in the Valley", 102 Lovelace, Earl, 70 Lowell, Robert, 144, 288, 289 Lyricism, 15 307 Macmillan, Allister, 290 Mailer, Norman, 133 Malcolm X, 103, 124 Malraux, Andre, 151 Man-God relationship, 47 Manichaean duality, 9, 11, 240 Manley, Edna, 275 Manley, Michael, 119, 228, 249-252 Manley, Norman, 254, 266, 274, 294 biography, 275 role in West Indian Federation, 267 Manley, Rachel, 294 Manoir, Auguste, 153 "Man O' War Bird", 78 "A Map of the Continent", 96, 131 Marquez, Gabriel Garcia, 257 Marvell, Andrew, 27, 37 "Mass Man", 136, 139 Mau Mau crisis, 17 McKay, Claude, 72, 284 McKeon, Michael, 48, 284 Medusa motif, 90 Memory as Vision (1978), 8, 12 "Metamorphoses", 68 Metaphor(s), 268 creolization, 11 European tradition, linguistic progress and, 98 mainstream Western, 52 use, Metaphoric correspondences, 36 Metaphoric identification and transference, 28 Metaphoric principle, 3, Metaphysical realism, 95 Metaphysicals, 37, 38, 39 Renaissance humanism of, 40 Methodism, 150 pragmatic, 152 Middle passage, 15, 70-72 Milano, Paolo, 290 Militant activism, 129 "Missing the Sea", 66, 68 Monroe, Marilyn, 134 "Moon", 68 Morant Bay Rebellion, 255 308 Index Morris, Mervyn, 230, 299 Movers, Bill, 47 "The Muse of History", 5, Mythical illusion, 88 Mythology, 80 Nabokov, Vladimir, 143 Naipaul, V.S., 10, 50, 65, 73, 76 Naming, 55 metaphoric, as primal act, 50 renewal and, 195 Nature's plan, 81 Negatives, 120, 131 Neruda, Pablo, 107, 108 Netdeford, Rex, 294 New World, 106 New World Adam, 50 NoaNoa, 164 Nussbaum, Martha Craven, 285 Obeah, 152-153 Odysseus, 14 Odyssey, 24 Old Testament models, 184, 246 Omeros (1990), 6, 9, 14, 140 Hellenic imagination in, 152 syncretism, "On Choosing Port of Spain", 138 Orange Street massacre, 269 Othello, 53 "The Pact", 153 Palace of the Peacock, 85, 86 Pantomime, 47, 227 Pasternak, Boris, 102, 158, 184 Paz, Octavio, 4, 281 People's National Party, 265 Plato, 77-78, 174 Plomer, William, 140 25Poews(1948), 1, 18, 20 Poems (195V)> 1, 18, 20 Politics, 7, 225, 249 Post-Impressionism, 163 Pound, Ezra, 21 Prospero-Caliban contexts, 48 Puritan ethos, 134 Questel, Victor, 292 Race, 7, 120 ancestry and, 116 Racial disorientation, 128 Racial violence, 53, 124 Racism, institutionalized, 122 Rampanalgas, Trinidad, 16, 146, 209 muse, 217 Rastafarians, 249, 251, 257, 265, 276, 293 Reddock, Rhonda, 284 Religion as basis of culture, 117 pervasive influence, 152 Remembrance, 227 Renaissance masters, 148 humanism, 183 portrayal of women, 183, 192 woman-muses, 192 "Return to D'Ennery", 44, 73, 76 Revolution, 261 Robinson Crusoe, 14 Rohlehr, Gordon, 101, 114, 137, 286, 287, 288 Roman Catholicism, 149 "Ruins of a Great House", 40 "The Sailor Sings Back to the Casuarinas", 241 Sainte Lucie, 226 Schizophrenic tensions, 68 Schofield, Malcolm, 285 "The Schooner Flight", 229 "Sea Canes", 226 "A Sea Chantey", 34 "The Sea Is History", 9, 53, 74 Seaodyssey, 21 The Secret Ladder, 86 Self-definition, Shakespeare, William, 53 Simmons, Harold, 120, 140, 141, 199, 291 "A Simple Flame", 178, 183 autobiographical content, 186 central theme, 185 harbour motif, 189 Index Slavery, 58, 254 Socialism, 104 democratic, 228, 249 South America, 64, 89, 259 "The Spoiler's Return", 230, 233 St Lucia, 73, 75 painting, 157 St Omer, Dunstan, 140, 141, 157 incarnation of Dionysiac spirit, 159, 161 St Omer, Garth, 74, 284 Star-Apple Kingdom (1979), 1, 249 Steelband music, 138 Stephen Dedalus/Walcott persona, 23 Stone, Carl, 251, 294 "Sunday Lemons", 226 Sunflowers, 164 "The Swamp", 58 Swamp image, 61 Syncretism, 2, 11 Tarada, Rei, "Tarpon", 81 as a moment of epiphany, 83 The Tempest, 24 Terada, Rei, 8, Theatre Workshop, 104 Thieme, John, 8, 11, 15, 282 Thomas, Dylan, 27-29, 283 Thomas, J.J., 284 Thomas, Ned, 293 Ti Jean and His Brothers, 72, 113 Tower of Babel symbolism, 219, 239 Traherne, Thomas, 38, 283 Trail of Tears, 135 Transcendence, 78 Trinidad, 19, 43, 82 Trinidadian Chinese, 212 "A Tropical Bestiary", 77, 78 Ulysses, 21 United States, 19 Van Gogh, Vincent, 163, 165, 207, 290, 291 Vendler, Helen, 15 309 Walcott, Derek ambivalence, 13, 41, 149 on ancestry, 7, 67 anguish, 68 apprenticeship to Western tradition, 41 on art, 154 colonizer's language as heritage, 17 conversion, 172-173 on death, 154 deification of Van Gogh and Gaugin, 165 Georgetown journal, 100 on history and politics, 249 influence of master painters on, 147, 148 instinct for Hellenic imagination, 152 in Jamaica, 40 journalism career, 104 on love, 154 marriage, 43 period of apprenticeship, 19 period of servitude, 26 on politics, on race, religious upbringing, 22 return home, 73 self-dramatization, 44 St Lucia beginnings, 17 in Trinidad, 19 US reception, 120 in the US, 19 Western imperialist ethos, 168 Western Word/imagination, 25 West Indian Federation, 120, 266, 267 "What the Twilight Says", Whiteness, 156 redefined, 170 semantics, 154, 190 Whitman, Walt, 107, 119, 131, 132, 288 Williams, Denis, 84, 93 Williams, Eric, 104,251 Williamson, James A., 290 'Winding Up", 226 Wordsworth, William, 141, 142, 145 Yeats, W.B., 142, 187 .. .Abandoning Dead Metaphors This page intentionally left blank Abandoning Dead Metaphors The Caribbean Phase of Derek Walcott's Poetry Patricia Ismond UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES... DATA Ismond, Patricia Abandoning dead metaphors : the Caribbean phase of Derek Walcott's poetry / Patricia Ismond p cm Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN: 976-640-107-1 Walcott, Derek. .. propels him into the major inquiry into the muse of Old World Western imperial history - the largest single theme in the discourse of the period The importance of the theme of history in Walcott