Omeros

Derek Walcott · 1990 CE · Poem · Caribbean · Contemporary

Two fishermen on St Lucia, Achille and Hector, fall out over Helen, a housemaid who has walked away from the English couple she worked for, while Philoctete carries a shin wound from a rusted anchor that will not close. Achille's mind travels back up the middle passage to the village his ancestors were taken from. A book-length poem in loose terza rima that takes Homer's names without his plot.

Open Omeros in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Lineage

• reworks ↑ The Iliad
  Homer · c. 750 BCE · Poem
• reworks ↑ The Odyssey
  Homer · c. 725 BCE · Poem
• influenced by ↑ The Divine Comedy
  Dante · c. 1320 CE · Poem

Attributes

Closest analogues

• The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda
  Cervantes · 1617 CE · Novel

  51% · 11 shared
  RomanceExile & HomecomingLoveSuffering & EnduranceWandererThe QuestThe SeaThe Ship / BoatThe Islandvs Personvs Nature
• Aethiopica
  Heliodorus · c. 250 CE · Novel

  51% · 11 shared
  RomanceExile & HomecomingLoveSuffering & EnduranceWandererHeroineThe QuestThe SeaThe Ship / Boatvs Personvs Nature
• Rights of Passage
  Kamau Brathwaite · 1967 CE · Poem

  47% · 14 shared
  PoemEpicExile & HomecomingColonialismContemporaryWandererThe QuestThe SeaThe Ship / Boatvs SelfEpicLyricalElegiacCaribbean
• The Lusiads
  Luís de Camões · 1572 CE · Poem

  46% · 13 shared
  PoemEpicColonialismHeroThe QuestVoyage and ReturnThe SeaThe Ship / BoatThe Islandvs Personvs NatureEpicLyrical
• Argonautica
  Apollonius of Rhodes · c. 250 BCE · Poem

  46% · 12 shared
  PoemEpicRomanceLoveHeroAlly / CompanionThe QuestVoyage and ReturnThe SeaThe Ship / Boatvs NatureEpic
• The African Queen
  John Huston · 1951 CE · Film

  41% · 11 shared
  RomanceLoveContemporaryHeroineAlly / CompanionThe QuestVoyage and ReturnThe Ship / Boatvs Personvs Naturevs Self