Derek Walcott

by Edward Baugh

Overview

Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott is one of the Caribbean's most famous writers. His unique voice in poetry, drama and criticism is shaped by his position at the crossroads between Caribbean, British and American culture and by his interest in hybrid identities and diaspora. Edward Baugh's Derek Walcott analyses and evaluates Walcott's entire career over the last fifty years. Baugh guides the reader through the continuities and differences of theme and style in Walcott's poems and plays. Walcott is an avowedly Caribbean writer, acutely conscious of his culture and colonial heritage, but he has also made a lasting contribution to the way we read and value the western literary tradition. This comprehensive survey considers each of Walcott's published books, offering a guide for students, scholars and readers of Walcott. Students of Caribbean and postcolonial studies will find this a perfect introduction to this important writer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521556743
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	01/26/2012
Series:	Cambridge Studies in African and Caribbean Literature , #10
Edition description:	Reissue
Pages:	270
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

EDWARD BAUGH is Professor Emeritus of English, the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica. His publications on Walcott include Derek Walcott: Memory as Vision – “Another Life”, Derek Walcott and an annotated edition of Walcott’s Another Life (co-edited with Colbert Nepaulsingh). He is also the author of Frank Collymore: A Biography and the poetry collections A Tale from the Rainforest, It Was the Singing and Black Sand.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

Derek Walcott has given words of caution for anyone who undertakes his biography. His essay “On Robert Lowell” begin: “Biographies of poets are hard to believe. The moment they are published they become fiction, subject to the same symmetry of plot, incident, dialogue as the novel. The inarticulate wisdom of really knowing another person is not in the broad sweep of that other person’s life but in its gestures; and when the biography is about a poet the duty of giving his life a plot makes the poetry the subplot.”1 Later in the essay Walcott writes, with reference to Lowell: “But we have all done awful things, and most biographies that show the frightening side of their subjects have a way of turning us into moral hypocrites” (Twilight, 97).

Table of Contents

Chronology; 1. Walcott, writing and the Caribbean: issues and directions; 2. Connections and separations: from 25 Poems to The Gulf; 3. 'What a man is:' Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays, The Haitian Trilogy and Franklin; 4. 'Is there that I born:' Another Life, Sea Grapes, The Star-Apple Kingdom; 5. The challenge of change: the dramatist after Dream; 6. 'Here' and 'elsewhere,' 'word' and 'world:' The Fortunate Traveller, Midsummer, The Arkansas Testament; 7. Narrative variations: Omeros, The Odyssey, The Bounty, Tiepolo's Hound; 8. Homecoming: The Prodigal; Select bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

Review of the hardback: 'Baugh presents a study of each of Walcott's published books and this volume can therefore be seen as a valuable introductory tool for students, scholars and readers of Walcott's work, as well as being useful to those engaged in Caribbean and postcolonial studies.' British Bulletin of Publications

From the Publisher