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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 811
EAN: 9780374225919
ISBN: 0374225915
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: August 31, 1990
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Sales Rank: 733829
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
A poem in five books, of circular narrative design, titled with the Greek name for Homer, which simultaneously charts two currents of history: the visible history charted in events -- the tribal losses of the American Indian, the tragedy of African enslavement -- and the interior, unwritten epic fashioned from the suffering of the individual in exile.
Amazon.com Review:
Creating an epic poem based on Homer and Odysseus seems a risky proposition for a modern poet, but Derek Walcott accomplishes the feat with stunning results in Omeros. The title, which is Homer's name in Greek, nods to the wandering and exile of the great poet himself, who learned and suffered while traveling. From there, Walcott takes off to 'see the cities of many men and to know their minds.' After an exhilarating exploration of tremendous proportions, we learn of the past and the present and ride along the rhythm of the words of Walcott in this amazing text.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Wonderful
This richly allusive poem is an exploration of the colonial experience, primarily from the viewpoint of the dispossessed. While based in Walcott's native St. Lucia, the poem ranges across North America and Europe, and draws on a rich literary heritage. While not strictly speaking an epic by traditional standards, Omeros is epic in scope and ambition. Most of Walcott's characters, including an autobiographical narrator, are individuals in search of a home. The poem itself is an effort to reconcile ... Read More
Rating: - Epic
Exploring the relationships between natives, tourists, and nature, Walcott moves beyond just our relationships with one another to create this modern epic. Evocative of the Iliad with its battles between Hector and Achille over the yellow-dressed Helen, Omeros moves beyond just the interactions of the natives to greater themes.
There are many exciting parts to the poem: the beauty of the language, the themes, that it was only on the second time reading Omeros that I realized it rhymed, such ... Read More
Rating: - Walcott's Omeros
Omeros ! A treat for the lover of language. Much has been and will be written of this literary challenge : plot, characters, and segueing epic; but little will ever do justice to the heart of the matter,- ( which demands this conscious encomium.)
What for Habermas is the ideal of communicative action is celebrated in Walcott as the action of poetic communication. Walcott paints.
On every page, he offers the reader a life time of disciplined observation - the fruit of which ... Read More
Rating:  - Postcolonial Homer
Walcott confidently feels his way into epic form, borrowing the blind eyes of Homer and tropes from Homer's tales. Jam-packed with craft, OMEROS' Dantesque tercets make hairpin turns on the pinpoints of vowels and consonants. Walcott is nothing if not evocative, calling forth the spirits of breadfruit, waves, Plains Indians, sunken treasure, sea creatures and all his other muses with a music that is beyond sounds.
For all the great poetry, what fans of the modern epic will miss in OMEROS is a ... Read More
Rating:  - The worst poem it has ever been my fire's misfortune to burn
Why is it not possible to bestow 0 stars upon an item? I cannot express deeply enough how horrible this 320-some-odd-page poem is. It is the longest complaint I have ever had to trudge through. That is all it is. One long list of complaints. All the narrator does throughout the piece is whine about the same things. A repetative compliation of meaningless and monotonous rants about where he belongs in life, and what makes them so tedious is the fact that you can never relate to the man, so there is no way to ... Read More
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Dewey Decimal Number: 811
EAN: 9780374225919
ISBN: 0374225915
Label: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: August 31, 1990
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Sales Rank: 733829
Studio: Farrar, Straus and Giroux