"That Light Beyond Metaphor": Derek Walcott's Ekphrases

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.