Derek Walcott: To Return to the Trees

Allusion to Classical figure Atlas, Seneca

Relationship to Classical text Seneca is described as a ‘fabled bore’, his Latin ‘gnarled’ and ‘laborious’.

Classical/post-Classical intertexts The image of Atlas echoes that of the biblical Samson in the preceding lines.

Further Comment Walcott plays on the image of the ageing poet, morphing senex into Seneca