Creole Baroque in Derek Walcott’s Archipelagic Imagery

Abstract

This paper proposes to explore some specific aspects of imagery in Derek Walcott's poetry, with special reference to the concepts of the archipel ("pensée archipélique") and the baroque, such as they are found in the writings of other Antillean writers as well, as for instance E. Glissant, P. Chamoiseau or R. Confiant, etc. My thesis will be that Walcott's imagery is baroque by its practice of the fugue and the detour, and archipelagic by its patterning recurrences and iterations.