Abstract
Formal, discursive and contextuals elements all play a part in the reception of ancient texts in modern poetry and drama. This article examines the simile as a formal technique which also generates and transmits intertextual relationships. It is argued that the simile also provides a model which illuminates the nexus between Walcott’s technique and the ways in which audiences read and experience his work. The first section identifies ways in which the Homeric simile operates structurally within the epics and suggests that it acts as an agent of perspective transformation, changing the audience’s perception both of the internal dynamics of the poem and of how the audience itself relates to the work. The second part of the paper explores this approach in relation to Walcott’sOmeros, with particular emphasis on the relationship between Philoctetes/Philoctete and the anonymous narrator of the poem. The third section examines a broader application of the simile model in relation to performance of a modern work closely linked with a single ancient text, Walcott’sStage Version of the Odyssey.
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Recent discussions of other aspects of the relationship between Walcott’s work and Homer include: L. Hardwick, “Convergence and divergence in reading Homer,” in: C. Emlyn-Jones, L. Hardwick, J. Purkis (eds.),Homer; Reading & Images, London, Duckworth, 1992, pp. 226–248; T. P. Hofmeister, “Iconoclasm, Elegy and Epiphany: Derek Walcott contemplating the bust of Homer,”IJCT 1.1, Summer 1994, pp. 107–128, and “The Wolf and the Hare: Epic Expansion and Contextualization in Derek Walcott’s Omeros,”IJCT 2.4, Spring 1996, pp. 536–554; cf. Idem, T. P. Hofmeister, “Review Article: Two New Works By Derek Walcott,”IJCT 1.4, Spring 1995, pp. 136–146; B. Knox, “Achilles in the Caribbean,” in: Idem, C. Emlyn-Jones, L. Hardwick, J. Purkis (eds.),Backing into the Future: The Classical Traditions & its Renewal, New York, Norton, 1994, pp. 333–341 (reprinted from New York Review of Books, March 1991); O. Taplin, “Derek Walcott’sOmeros & Derek Walcott’s Homer,”Arion 3rd ser. 2, 1991, pp. 214–216.
M. W. Edwards,The Iliad: A commentary, vol. V: Books 17–20, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. 24–41.
The Odyssey of Homer, tr. R. Lattimore, New York, Harper & Row, 1965.
Reverse similes are a particular feature of the poetic treatment of Penelope and Odysseus in Homer and have been examined in detail in relation to gender roles by H. P. Foley, “Reverse similes and sex roles in theOdyssey,” in: J. Peradotto & J. P. Sullivan (eds.),Women in the Ancient World, New York, State University of New York Press, 1984, pp. 59–78. For an alternative approach, see R. Friedrich, “On the Compositional Use of Similes in theOdyssey”, American Journal of Philology 102, 1981, pp. 120–137.
D. Walcott,Omeros, London and Boston, Faber & Faber, 1990.
D. Walcott,A Stage Version of the Odyssey, London and Boston, Faber & Faber, 1992.
The Iliad of Homer, tr. R. Lattimore, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1951.
D. Walcott,Another Life, New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Jonathan Cape, 1973. See also R. Terada,Derek Walcott’s Poetry. American Mimicry, Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1993, ch. 3.
For discussion of the theoretical implications, see M. D. Bristol,Carnival and Theatre, New York and London, Methuen, 1985.
For discussion of the evidence, see. O. Taplin,Homeric Soundings, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1992.
Source: Video II, “Truth, Imagination & Value” in:Homer: Poetry & Society, Milton Keynes, BBC/Open University Productions, 1992.
A. Macaulay, Review inFinancial Times (London), 26 March 1993. O. Taplin, “Hustling Homer”,Times Literary Supplement (London), 1 July 1992.
These issues also involve broader theoretical considerations some of which I have addressed in the sections on diaspora and intertextuality in “A Daidalos in the late-modern age? Transplanting Homer into Derek Walcott’sThe Odyssey: A Stage Version”, in: L. Hardwick and S. Ireland (eds.),Selected Proceedings of the January Conference 1996: The reception of Classical Texts and Images, Milton Keynes, Open University, 1996, pp. 232–252 andhttp://www.open.ac.uk/OU/Academic/Arts/CC96/ccfrontpage.htm.
Source: Interview, “Making Hay”, Channel 4 T. V. (U.K.), 31 May 1993. For an academic’s critique of multiculturalist ideology see C. West, “Minority Discourse and the Pitfalls of Canon Formation”,Yale Journal of Criticism 1.1, 1987, pp. 193–201, reprinted in revised form in: Idem, C. WestKeeping Faith, London and New York, Routledge, 1993, pp. 33–44. Issues relating to Caribbean culture and identity have been analysed by S. Hall, “Negotiating Caribbean Identities,” the 1993 Walter Rodney Memorial Lecture delivered at the Centre for Caribbean Studies, University of Warwick, reprinted in,New Left Review 209, January/February 1995, pp. 3–14.
These polarities have been much discussed by critics. See, for example, S. Schein, “Odysseus and Polyphemus in theOdyssey”,Greek, Roman & Byzantine Studies 11, 1970, pp. 73–83.
The issues are discussed by P. Cartledge, “Like a worm in the bud? A heterology of classical Greek slavery”,Greece and Rome 10.2, 1993, pp. 162–179; also Idem, P. CartledgeThe Greeks: A Portrait of Self & Others, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993. ch. 3.
D. Dabydeen, “On Not Being Milton: nigger talk in England today”, in C. Ricks and L. Michaels (eds.),The State of the Language, London, Faber and Faber, 1990, p. 13. See also E. Saïd,Cultural Imperialism, London, Chatto & Windus, 1993, ch. 1, andOrientalism: Western conceptions of the Oriental, London, Penguin 1991, new ed. 1995; also J. Friedman,The Monstrous Races in Medieval Thought & Art, Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1981 and A. Perry and S. Tammen, “Giants, Amazons, Blemmyes and Other Ancient Monsters in the New World”, in W. Haase and M. Reinhold (eds.),The Classical Tradition and the Americas (CTA) I 2, Berlin and New York, Walter de Gruyter, 1997 (forthcoming).
To cross this gap, the “heavy-beamed” poem becomes a ship, riding time “to unknown archipelagos”. The image here relates to Walcott’s own conception of his craft. “The technical challenge is always the most interesting one ... I thought of this [play] as a sort of a ship ... in which the ribs of the ship were the lines.” Source: Interview,Truth, Imagination & Value, op. cit. Walcott’s image resonates with Virgil’s description of the rib cage of the Trojan Horse inAeneid Bk. II. 13 ff.
In the early drafts of the script the Eye was an Orwellian style television. In the staged version the Eye was a sort of periscope attached to the grotesque figure of the Cyclops.
Ancient and modern resonances of Wall and Eye also elide in, M. Atwood,The Handmaid’s Tale, London, Virago, 1987, in which the secret police are known as Eyes and travel in security vans carrying on the side the emblem of the Eye, like a Greek trireme.
According to the Stage Managers’ annotations on the properties list, the recording used for the crowd noise in the Stratford production of 1992 was actually that from a scene in St. Peter’s Square, Rome, when His Holiness the Pope appeared on a balcony.
See G. Doran, “Staging the Odyssey”,Omnibus 26, 1993, p. 2: “Walcott imagined what kind of monsters we fear as a society now and created the Cyclops as a ruthless dictator, ruling by the tyranny of state apparatus, his all-seeing eye, like Big Brother in Orwell’s 1984.” Doran directed the Stratford production.
Affinities between the Cyclops and the suitors have been discussed by R. Hankey, “Evil in theOdyssey”, in: E. M. Craik (ed.),Owls to Athens, Oxford, Clarendon, 1990, pp. 87–95. The suitors, however, represent an external threat to theoikos of Odysseus. Walcott situates Arnaeus within it.
E. Saïd, “East isn’t East: The impending end of the age of orientalism”,Times Literary Supplement (London), 3 February 1995.
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An earlier version of this paper was read at the Third Meeting of the International Society for the Classical Tradition, held at Boston University, March 8–12, 1995. I wish to thank the participants and the editor and anonymous referees ofIJCT for their helpful comments and suggestions.
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Hardwick, L. Reception as simile: the poetics of reversal in Homer and Derek Walcott. Int class trad 3, 326–338 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686394
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02686394