Journal | Il Tolomeo
Journal issue | 26 | 2024
Research Article | “That Light Beyond Metaphor”: Derek Walcott’s Ekphrases
“That Light Beyond Metaphor”: Derek Walcott’s Ekphrases
Abstract
This article looks at Derek Walcott’s ekphrastic writing, i.e. its combined use of poetry and painting, from a twofold perspective: 1) the primal employment of a densely visual language for descriptive purposes which carries out the proverbial Walcottian ‘naming’ of the Caribbean reality, often in conjunction with the memory of Walcott as a young painter; 2) the transforming dialogue with actual paintings of the European canon in mature works like Tiepolo’s Hound, The Prodigal and White Egrets. I will especially explore the dramatic figure of the ‘failed painter’ that first emerges in the poetic autobiography Another Life as a ‘self-portrait’ of Walcott’s ekphrastic writing itself and the ways ‘the failed painter’ subject evolves assuming a functional role to accomplish an overall dismissal of the received ‘colonial visuality culture’ and the establishment of an Antillean aesthetics.
Submitted: Oct. 23, 2024 | Accepted: Oct. 28, 2024 | Published Oct. 30, 2024 | Language: en
Keywords Failure • Ekphrasis • Caribbean • Walcott • Painting
Copyright © 2024 Roberta Cimarosti. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/Tol/2499-5975/2024/01/011
