Abstract
Derek Walcott’s work often operates within a dynamic tension that simultaneously seeks to bear witness to the trauma the Caribbean world has experienced, pursuing an affirmative way forward that resists further displacement, while seeking to develop Caribbean culture. Walcott demonstrates this formation of culture in generative tensions like hybridity and mimicry, both of which are well known within postcolonial scholarship. Yet he also identifies alternative sites of tension in his work, particularly through his use of “O” in his epic poem Omeros, an image that depicts personal, cultural, and geographical wounds, while ultimately seeking a sense of healing and belonging. The “O” moreover functions as both sound and signifier in the poem, giving voice to colonial and postcolonial injustices, and providing the creative labor to develop a culture and sense of belonging from these circumstances. Out of this tension, Walcott therefore pursues a knowledge of woundedness, healing, and cultural understanding, engaging in transnational and transatlantic maneuvers that recover and evolve the St. Lucian identity personally, culturally, and geographically. Walcott realizes this recovery through his frequent use of the “O” in Omeros,which serves as a circular image that demonstrates both Walcott’s and St. Lucia’s identity, or when it is fractured, how it indicates a lack of development.
Highlights
This study examines generative tensions in Omeros, focusing primarily on the “O” as it signifies the circular, cyclical orbit of the poem through personal, cultural, and geographical wounds, while seeking a sense of healing and belonging
Near the end of the essay, he describes the experience of the twilight as a tension that is potentially obscuring, though one that might lead to wholeness, self-understanding, development of identity, and a return home: “When dusk heightens, like amber on a stage set, those ramshackle hoardings of wood and rusting iron which circle our cities, a theatrical sorrow rises with it, for the glare, like the aura from an old-fashioned brass lamp, is like a childhood signal to come home” (3)
One of the first instances of the “O” in Omeros occurs near the beginning of the poem, in the second section of chapter one, where the poet frequently uses “O” images to convey both the colonial wound and the self-healing power of the island and the ocean surrounding it
Summary
This study examines generative tensions in Omeros, focusing primarily on the “O” as it signifies the circular, cyclical orbit of the poem through personal, cultural, and geographical wounds, while seeking a sense of healing and belonging. With these various considerations of the circular aspects of the poem, examining the “O” as both image and sound will further develop scholarship on Walcott’s generative sites of tension in Omeros that acknowledge both cultural wounds and seek a sense of healing and belonging in light of these wounds.
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