Derek Walcott: Crusoe’s Island

Length / Form A long poem in three sections

Allusion to Classical figure  Vulcan, Achilles

Classical/post-Classical intertexts The gloomy reference to Achilles’ shield, coupled with references to graves and furnace blast, perhaps suggest that Walcott’s image is coloured by recollections of W. H. Auden’s poem ‘The Shield of Achilles’, though Auden uses ‘Hephaistos’, rather than the Latin ‘Vulcan’ to denote the blacksmith god (W. H. Auden, The Shield of Achilles. New York: Random House, 1955). The words ‘profane and pagan’, used to describe Vulcan’s art, demonstrate a Christian intertext at work.

Further Comment As a model of ekphrasis, the depiction of Achilles’ shield in Iliad VIII leads Walcott to reflect that ‘art is profane and pagan’. However, the notion is complicated by the opening image of ‘The chapel’s cowbell/ Like God’s anvil’, fashioning the ocean as a bronze shield.