Engagements with the pastoral mode in the poetry and plays of Derek Walcott

Jones, Miranda Alice (2020). Engagements with the pastoral mode in the poetry and plays of Derek Walcott. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

The intention of this thesis is to investigate engagements with the pastoral mode in the poetry and plays of Derek Walcott. This will be achieved through a focus upon four key areas: Edenic symbolism, classical reception, allusions to the visual arts, and pastoral drama. The pastoral is a complex mode, with a long literary history. I argue that Walcott engages with the mode in a process of transformative interactions with the legacy of Eurocentric representations of Caribbean settings, the notion of the Caribbean as an Edenic space, the classical tradition including the pastorals of Theocritus and Virgil, the tradition of landscape art and both the piscatory pastoral and pastoral drama. These engagements allow for the subversion of generic expectations, and a revisionary, transformative approach to the pastoral mode and its many associations. This results in a distinctly Walcottian type of pastoral, one which evades reductive idealisation and restrictive uses of aesthetic models, in favour of a creative and profound engagement with pastoral’s core themes.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):