Omeros
Omeros is an epic of the writer Derek Walcott of St. Lucia . It was first published in 1990. The work is divided into seven “books” with a total of 64 chapters. Critics regard Omeros as Walcott's "major achievement". Soon after its publication in 1990, it received widespread acclaim from media such as The Washington Post and The New York Times Book Review , the latter of which named the book one of the "Best Books of 1990" and named it "One of Mr. Walcott's finest poetic works ”(one of Mr. Walcott's finest poetic works). The book won the WH Smith Literary Award in 1991 . In 1992 Walcott received the Nobel Prize for Literature and Professor Kjell Espmark , who presented the laureates as a member of the Nobel Prize Committee, particularly emphasized the Omeros as Walcott's main work. Walcott also designed the cover of the book himself, on which some of the main characters can be seen together in a boat at sea.
content
The epic is loose to the Iliad of Homer inspired and repeatedly used quotes and figures from the factory. The main characters are, for example, the fishermen Achille and Hector , as well as the retired English officer Major Plunkett with his wife Maud , the domestic servant Helen , the blind man “ Seven Seas ” (symbolizing Homer) and the author himself. Although the bulk of the story takes place on the island of St. Lucia, where Walcott was born and raised, Walcott also created scenes in Brookline , Massachusetts , where he was living and teaching at the time he created the work, and the character Achille poses one Journey on a slave ship from Africa to the Caribbean; in addition, Walcott tells in Book Five of travel experiences in numerous cities around the world, including Lisbon , London , Dublin , Rome and Toronto .
The island of St. Lucia was historically known as "the Helen of the West Indies" (Helen of West Indies ), because in the 18th century colonial rule often on the island between the French and the British changed the strategic due to the location of Island opposite North America pursued their interests. In reference to this, Walcott personifies the island occasionally like his characters as "Helen" and thus symbolically connects the island with both Helena Homer and Housemaid Helen.
Walcott divides the narrative among his characters and his own voice so that the epic does not represent a protagonist or "hero" as it would in conventional epics. His narrative doesn't follow a clear, linear path either. Walcott jumps through time and from figure to figure with no particular reference to narrative structures. These tendencies, along with Walcott's inclusion of himself in the epic and his commentary on his characters as fictional creatures, make the poem a postmodern epic.
Much of the epic takes place in the late 20th century, but there are numerous scenes set in other eras. For example, there are chapters that take place in the late 18th century and deal with the ancestors of the characters Achille and Plunkett. These passages describe the Battle of Les Saintes , which took place off the coast of St. Lucia in 1782 and ended with a victory over the French by the British fleet under the command of Admiral George Rodney . In Books 4 and 5, Walcott also writes on and in the voice of 19th century activist Caroline Weldon who fought for the rights of the Lakota Sioux Indians.
The narrative of the Omeros can be roughly divided into three main plots that crisscross the text. The first follows the Homeric rivalry between Achille and Hector for their love, Helen. Next to it appears a smaller figure known as Philoctete, a wounded fisherman who is inspired by Homer's Philoctetes . The second plot thread is the woven-in story of Major Plunkett and his wife Maud, who live on the island and struggle with the colonial history of the British. The third storyline is the autobiographical narrative by Walcott himself.
shape
For most of the epic Walcott used a three-line form, to the Terzineschema recalls that Dante in his Divine Comedy used. Walcott's form, however, is much freer than Dantes'. Its rhyme scheme doesn't follow a regular pattern. Walcott claimed in an interview that the epic was written in hexameters, but that is only partially true. Lance Callahan writes that the poem often gave the impression of being in free verse. Jill Gidmark notes that “Walcott's lines are visually, though not metrically, the same length by sight, but not by meter.”
In a short section (Section III) of the opening chapter of Book 4, Walcott also breaks completely with the terzine form and writes rhyming couplets in tetrameters .
Stage adaptations
Walcott adapted the work for performance at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse , Shakespeare's Globe , in London. With the actors Joseph Marcell and Jade Anouka from St. Lucia it was performed in May and June 2014. A second season took place in October 2015.
Individual evidence
- ^ Poetry Foundation article on Walcott
- ^ New York Times Overview of Derek Walcott
- ^ Kjell Espmark: Nobel Prize for Literature, Award Ceremony Speech. 1992. Nobel Prize website. [1]
- ↑ “St Lucia: Helen of the West Indies.” Cambridgeshire Agenda. May 1, 2012. [2] .
- ↑ Derek Walcott on Omeros: An Interview Conducted by Luigi Sampietro [3]
- ^ "Despite the fact that most lines are composed of twelve syllables, so wildly varied is the metrical construction of the poem that at times it gives the appearance of being in free verse." Lance Callahan: In the Shadows of Divine Perfection . New York: Routledge, 2003: 3.
- ↑ Jill Gidmark: Omeros. Masterplots II: Poetry. Literary Reference Database.
- ↑ Sam Wanamaker Playhouse: Omeros (2014) . Shakespeare's Globe . 2014. Archived from the original on May 21, 2014. Retrieved September 16, 2015.
- ↑ Sam Wanamaker Playhouse: Omeros (2015) . Shakespeare's Globe. 2015. Archived from the original on September 5, 2015. Retrieved September 16, 2015.