Two key things to remember about Walcott, with regards to biography, are that he was born in Saint Lucia in 1930 and won the Nobel Prize in 1992. I do not wish to dive too much into the biographical this time, but rather spend some time discussing Walcott’s poetry. I am going to concentrate mainly on “A Far Cry from Africa,” in order to provide you with some thematic and stylistic tools which will hopefully enable you when reading the selections from “Omeros. ”
“A Far Cry from Africa”
- What does it mean to be of mixed race? What does it mean to associate yourself as both African and British? What does it mean to use the English langauge in your writing? What does it mean use the words civilized/uncivilized with regard to populations? These are just a few questions the poet raises in this poem.
- Look at the beginning line: “A wind is ruffling the tawny pelt of Africa”- From the very beginning “wind” is introduced in order to show a sense of natural displacement. It is wind which has the power to transport a leaf or a page, and thus, from the beginning, wind displaces the reader. DISPLACEMENT is a major theme in many of the works we have looked at for this class, and is especially important in Walcott.
- “What is that to the white child hacked in bed?/To savages, expendable as Jews”- This is an incredibly powerful and haunting line… what did you make of it? He uses the word “savages” here in order to portray this idea of the savage versus the civilized, but how is this word used against the civilized (i.e. “civilization” in line 13) later on in the poem?
- Walcott often combines mythological and cultural elements, using them inside his poetry to create a new world of ideas and a new language to express those ideas. “Omeros,” for example, is an epic tale which retells, or re-narrates, Homer’s Odyssey by situating the ancient tale inside Saint Lucia. Walcott thus provides his version of the myth for the reader, a version which adopts a Caribbean and African myths, languages, and artifacts while also engaging in a deep reflection on colonialism (among many other things). Do you see this myth-gathering/cultural-gathering anywhere in “A Far Cry from Africa’? Where?
- “The gorilla wrestles with the superman” is one of the most famous lines in this poem. Remember it! And think about what it means…
- “how choose/between this Africa and the English tongue I love”- We have spent quite some time discussing the postcolonial writers, especially with regard to their use of the English language. Walcott is once again engaging in this discussion, trying to understand and come to terms with his own use of the English language, the language of the oppressor. The poet is, as he reminds us in this poem, of mixed blood, stranded between two identities, two races, and therefore two separate cultures. He is literally “divided.” How does he come to terms with this in the poem? Does he? Who would he agree with: Rushdie, Brathwaite, Thiong’o. Achebe? Try to work this out, it will be very useful for the final exam to be able to distinguish between these men and their linguistic philosophies.
- The poem ends with four questions.” Why? Are they really questions? How do they compare to the first question he asks at the end of the first stanza? Where has the wind taken us by the end?
Hear Walcott read his poem “Sea Grapes”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxdjlqiz4q4&feature=PlayList&p=239BED337D2773DE&index=0&playnext=1
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