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- Title
Iconoclasm, Elegy and Epiphany: Derek Walcott Contemplating the Bust of Homer.
- Authors
Hofmeister, Timothy P.
- Abstract
Walcott's "Omeros" renames Homer out of a belief in the poet's Adamic opportunity to remake reality. The etymology of "Omeros" (O the sea's invocation, mer mother and sea, os grey bone and sibilant surf) "names" a poet who possesses the elemental language of a people rooted in their own place; who honors and benefits them by working that language; who knows nature as continuing creation; who is liberated from history as ephemeral praise and blame; and who is self-integrated owing to these gifts. The poet aspires toward this Omeros, kin to Heaney's Wordsworthian "owl-caller": "As he stand open like an eye or an ear, he becomes imprinted with all the melodies and hieroglyphs of the world; the workings of the active universe . . . are echoed far inside him.'
- Subjects
OMEROS (Poem : Walcott); WALCOTT, Derek, 1930-2017; SAINT Lucian poetry (English); HOMER, fl. ca. 900 B.C.-ca. 801 B.C.; POETRY (Literary form); LITERARY criticism
- Publication
International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 1994, Vol 1, Issue 1, p107
- ISSN
1073-0508
- Publication type
Poetry Review
- DOI
10.1007/BF02679083