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ABSTRACT RE-INHABITING THE ISLANDS: SENSES OF PLACE IN THE POETRY OF GARY SNYDER AND DEREK WALCOTT Jason T. Hertz, M.A. Western Carolina University (May 2011) Director: Dr. Laura Wright Building on the castaway narratives in both Gary Snyder‘s and Derek Walcott‘s poetry, I use Yann Martel‘s novel Life of Pi as a contemporary analogue for reading Snyder‘s Pacific journeys, in Regarding Wave and Turtle Island, and the quests of Omeros’ fisherman protagonist, Achille. In chapter one, I read Snyder‘s Regarding Wave, analyzing how he revised place archetypes from rocks to waves in order to initiate a more balanced culture in harmony with natural rhythms. Regarding Wave demonstrates the poet‘s biocentric and historiographical critique of linearity and towers, and it embodies his thematic and poetic identification with ―flows and spirals‖ (Snyder, Regarding Wave 24) because these symbols express a coherent sense of place in an archipelago, on Suwanose-Jima and Turtle Island. I argue that he fused the knowledge of a balanced animal-human household on Suwanose-Jima in the Ryukyu archipelago with Mahāyāna Buddhism for a vision of life as a bioregional member of the ―great / earth / sangha‖ (Turtle Island 73), providing a spiritual context for environmentalism and an
environmental context for American Buddhism. In chapter two, I read Derek Walcott‘s Omeros as a poetic fusion of the creole present of St. Lucia within the ―official‖ (Walcott ―Muse‖ 49) archetypes of Western literature, mainly but not limited to Graeco-Roman mythology. Rather than assimilate St. Lucian culture into European literary forms, the long poem transposes and fuses the region‘s cultures and traditions for something new. I compare the two poets in chapter three through the New World poetic lens that Walcott develops in ―The Muse of History,‖ arguing that Walcott and Snyder negotiate the challenges of postcolonial and environmental poetry by writing intensely self-reflexive works that evoke the search for a healed sense of place. They draw their energy from the bitterness of a broken contract with nature to attempt to name the world again for everyone, and the way that they construe everyone is through the concept of a bioregion emanating in concentric ecological circles from their home ranges. Since they deal with ocean currents and watersheds, these communities are consequently transnational and hybrid.
Page 1 and 2: RE-INHABITING THE ISLANDS: SENSES O
Page 3: TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract . . . .
Page 7 and 8: Life of Pi narrates the journey of
Page 9 and 10: 9 I approach the complex and themat
Page 11 and 12: 11 heroic fisherman Achille both ar
Page 13 and 14: offer readers ways to perceive a li
Page 15 and 16: To gain a sense of Snyder‘s situa
Page 17 and 18: 17 cultural traditions of their par
Page 19 and 20: North American homeland. I analyze
Page 21 and 22: 21 primitive 10 social structures f
Page 23 and 24: 23 castaway gives up the idea of re
Page 25 and 26: other.‖ His chosen place in the h
Page 27 and 28: 27 exclaims in affirmation to this
Page 29 and 30: the overthrow of ―patriarchy and
Page 31 and 32: 31 —wind, shake stiff thorns of c
Page 33 and 34: deities. He invokes the ―Sky Gods
Page 35 and 36: 35 where ―sea-people‖ and ―se
Page 37 and 38: 37 CHAPTER TWO: O-MER-OS, SINGING T
Page 39 and 40: 39 (2) because all landmasses, stri
Page 41 and 42: 41 Puerto Rican writer Antonio Pedr
Page 43 and 44: 43 forward to a promised pig for ne
Page 45 and 46: 45 and a ball and chain, everywhere
Page 47 and 48: ―intertextuality has been seen as
Page 49 and 50: of initiation into the songs and pr
Page 51 and 52: 51 Walcott utilizes the canoe 33 as
Page 53 and 54: 53 Why waste lines on Achille, a sh
Page 55 and 56:
55 generally. Omeros is a multi-fac
Page 57 and 58:
57 while the latter applies the ―
Page 59 and 60:
59 Dante‘s Malebolge 35 in Sulphu
Page 61 and 62:
61 who refuse to wear the uniform.
Page 63 and 64:
growing environmental movement, whi
Page 65 and 66:
65 Contemporary environmental probl
Page 67 and 68:
Environmental Criticism 63). Coloni
Page 69 and 70:
69 psychological‖ (Elder 110) ans
Page 71 and 72:
71 upward social mobility was a pri
Page 73 and 74:
this luxury, to see nature as denud
Page 75 and 76:
75 family roots in Texas and Washin
Page 77 and 78:
77 symbolism for a sensibility that
Page 79 and 80:
Western mythos that Derek Walcott d
Page 81 and 82:
81 negotiate the challenges of New
Page 83 and 84:
83 WORKS CITED Adams, Carol J., Ed.
Page 85 and 86:
85 2002. Print. Carpenter, Kevin. D
Page 87 and 88:
87 100-08. Print. Intergovernmental
Page 89 and 90:
Oelschlaeger, Max. The Idea of Wild
Page 91 and 92:
91 ---. Regarding Wave. New York: N
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