Canto In Omeros

The epic poem Omeros by Derek Walcott is written in non-rhyming, non-metrical tercets. However, the third canto in Chapter XXXIII deviates from this structure and takes the shape of a smaller poem comprised of 17 rhyming couplets. The diction in this section creates an ominous tone, that is emphasized by the metrical cadence, to highlight the narrator’s feelings of loneliness and grief being alone in the house he once shared with his lost lover. The regularity and rhythm created by the rhyming couplets in this canto illustrate the narrator’s attempt to make sense of and come to terms with the emotions that have manifested within the house.
In the previous cantos of this chapter, the narrator describes his life living alone in Brookline, Massachusetts as he laments his old love. In the second canto of the chapter, the last lines of the final stanza read: “I fiddled with the door, hoping a ghost / would rise from her chair and help me unlock it.” (172). This quotation shows the narrator’s hope for his love to be there when he gets home. However, he acknowledges that this hope is unrealistic by characterizing his lover as a “ghost”- something intangible, of the past. Furthermore, his wish for her to perform an act so

This is highlighted in the ninth stanza, “Unlucky house that I uncurse / by rites of genuflecting verse.” (173). In this stanza, the narrator firstly characterizes the house as “unlucky,” implying that the house itself does not directly cause him anguish, but it has unluckily become closely associated with his lover’s absence, and therefore the source of his grief. Secondly, he addresses the shift in form by saying, “I uncurse, by rites of genuflecting verse.” Acknowledging the shift to verse shows that it is done intentionally. The purpose in this case is to “uncurse”, or free the house from its association with the woman who once lived there with