Omeros

Omeros

Omeros is a 1990 epic poem by Nobel Prize-winning author Derek Walcott. Many consider it his finest work.[citation needed]

Overview

The epic is set on the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. Although its name is Omeros (Homer in greek) it has just a minor touch of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.

The narrative of Omeros is multilayered. Walcott focuses on no single character; rather, many critics have taken the "hero" of Omeros to be the island of St. Lucia itself.

The narrative draws heavily on the legacy of the Homeric epics; Book One even opens with an invocation of the Greek poet, who is likened to the blind character, Seven Seas. However, while many characters within the epic derive their appellations from Homeric characters, this is the only absolute correlation; the themes are Homeric in inspiration, but the story does not imitatively follow the plot of either the Iliad or the Odyssey. Achille has been identified as Achilles, but also as Menalaus and Odysseus. Hector has been connected to Paris and Agamemnon, Plunkett to Priam, Nestor, and even Paris. Helen is Helen, but also possibly Cassandra, and Ma Killman, Patroclus and Andromache (whose Greek name means "battle" and "man"). The story can be divided into three main threads, all of which are introduced in Book One of the poem.

  • The first follows the rivalry of the Homerically-named Achille and Hector over their love for Helen. Considerable attention is paid to Philoctete, an injured fisherman inspired by Homer's and Sophocles' Philoctetes.
  • The second is the interwoven story of Sergeant Major Plunkett and his Irish wife Maud, who live on the island and must reconcile themselves to the history of British colonization of St. Lucia.
  • The final thread is the tale of the poet-narrator, who comments on the action of the poem and partakes in many trans-Atlantic journeys and wanderings himself.

The poem is ambitious in scope. Walcott draws on Homer, Virgil, and also Dante (the form of the poem is reminiscent of the Dante-invented terza rima). Themes presented in this poem include nostalgia, colonialism, historiography, homecoming, paternity, poetry, and love. If any theme binds the characters together, it is a universal human desire for communion with the past.

Walcott has been praised for his rich and inventive use of language in Omeros.

Walcott was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992.

See also

References

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