Dr Philip Holden (email: ellhpj@nus.edu.sg)

Poetry (1)

Reading

• Poems by Derek Walcott (Hinterland 87-106), and the additional poem "A Far Cry From Africa," which is in the "Other Documents" bin on the IVLE site. Make sure you read Walcott's introduction to his early life on pages 89-93, and think about what might have led him to become a poet.
• The introduction to Walcott at http://www.emory.edu/ENGLISH/Bahri/Walcott.html
  [this isn't a very accomplished introduction, but it gives a useful overview of the themes in his work. If you'd like to browse around a little, you may also want to check out the Caribbean Poetry: Barbados site at http://www.courses.vcu.edu/ENG-snh/Caribbean/Barbados/Poetry/index.htm]

Some Pointers

This will be the first of three weeks in which we look at Caribbean poetry. While we'll use theoretical readings in the coming weeks, the focus in this week's lecture will be on giving us some background to Caribbean poetry itself. We'll also think about what poetry as a genre is, and how we might analyse it. We'll then focus on Walcott's poetry, and in particular on the two poems "Ruins of a Great House" and "A Far Cry from Africa." In reading them, we'll also remind ourselves again of the terminology necessary for the critical reading of poetry.

You'll note that Walcott's poems contain many allusions to other texts. If you have time you might want to think about following some of these down: doing so will help you prepare for our later discussion about research.

"A Far Cry From Africa"

1.The reference to "Kikuyu" describes the participation of members of this ethnic group in the Mau Mau movement against British rule in Kenya. To find out more about the movement, start here, but you'll probably need to go further.

2."A waste of our compassion, as with Spain," is probably a reference to the Spanish Civil War, in which many British writers and poets, including W.H. Auden who influenced Walcott greatly, participated. Find more out about the War, and indicate why you think Walcott makes a reference to it in his poem.

"Ruins of a Great House"

3. Why does Walcott preface the poem with a quotation from Thomas Browne's "Urn Burial"? What can you find out about the Browne text, the context of the quote, and why Walcott might wish to use it? Follow this link and then search for the quote using your browser's "Find" function. Note that Walcott gets the quote slightly wrong, so you'll need to think smart to find it.

4. "Marble as Greece, like Faulkner's south in stone." Why would Marble be associated with Greece, who is the writer William Faulkner, and what is his "south"? What has all this got to do with effect of the poem?

5. "What Kipling heard; the death of a great empire." Rudyard Kipling was an English poet and novelist who was mostly pro-imperialist. Walcott probably has in mind here Kipling's poem "Recessional." Read the poem and think what a knowledge of this intertextual reference contributes to Walcott's poem.

6. Towards the poem Walcott refers to the "ashen prose of Donne," and quotes--not very accurately--twice from Donne's Meditation XVII ("Part of the continent, piece of the main," and "as well as if a manor of thy friend's . . ."). Read Meditation XVII carefully, and consider what effect Walcott's references to Donne have at the end of the poem.

Last updated: 6 November, 2007