Book Description

The thesis is a Critical Edition of Derek Walcott's Omeros, consisting of a Critical Introduction and Annotations. The Critical Introduction analyses: - Narrative - Settings - Metaphor and Paronomasia - Symbolism - Historiography - Intertexts - Dualism - Autobiography - Dialects - Prosody. The Annotations comment on more than 1000 references that may be obscure and on specifics of narrative, language and prosody. This study presents new conclusions about some aspects of Omeros: - It challenges the prevailing view that the work is written substantially in a variation of terza rima and shows that regular quatrains predominate. - It demonstrates ways in which the metrics follow the sense of the narrative and takes a more balanced position on the use of Caribbean as opposed to classical metrics than that put forward previously. - It identifies a paragraphic structure to the verse. - It proposes a new prosodic structure for the significant Chapter XXX/iii. - It extends Walcott's recognised use of numerology into word counting the names of characters. - It develops the idea of Walcott's dualism and his use of pairing and contradiction as a dialectical method. - It defines his wide use of paronomasia and shows that many of the puns have a metaphorical aspect beyond mere word-play. - It analyses some of Walcott's symbolism. - It identifies intertextual links to his earlier works and to some thirty other writers, and suggests homage to Hemingway and possibly Heaney. - It provides the first complete analysis of Walcott's rhyme types in Omeros. In its analysis of Omeros and in the Annotations it has included commentary from across the critical literature, to provide some sense of other views on Walcott's writing, and has included as many as possible of Walcott's own comments on Omeros and on the writer's task, as a background to understanding the poem.