"Like leaves against the sunlight": Translucent Trans-Historicism in Derek Walcott's "The Schooner Flight ".
In Derek Walcott's "The Schooner Flight," recurrent images of translucence—silks, ghosts, the shimmering sea, leaves, and canvas sails—invite readers to understand postcolonial poetry neither as offering clear vistas onto discernible histories nor as opaque linguistic surfaces refusing access to tho...
| Published in: | Journal of Modern Literature Vol. 48; no. 4; pp. 59 - 75 |
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| Format: | Literary Criticism |
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Indiana University Press
Summer2025
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=188293047&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 188293047 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 0022281X JML jtl: Journal of Modern Literature issn: 0022281X maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Summer2025 vid: 48 iid: 4 pid: 211 pub: Indiana University Press artinfo: ui: 188293047 10.2979/jml.00096 ppf: 59 ppct: 16 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 861KB tig: atl: "Like leaves against the sunlight": Translucent Trans-Historicism in Derek Walcott's "The Schooner Flight ". aug: au: Loeb, Hannah affil: University of Virginia su: Schooner Flight, The (Poem : Walcott) Walcott, Derek, 1930-2017 Postcolonialism Impressionism (Literature) Mediation 20th century (Literary period) sug: subj: Schooner Flight, The (Poem : Walcott) Walcott, Derek, 1930-2017 Postcolonialism Impressionism (Literature) Mediation 20th century (Literary period) keyword: Derek Walcott postcolonial poetry trans-historicism translucence ab: In Derek Walcott's "The Schooner Flight," recurrent images of translucence—silks, ghosts, the shimmering sea, leaves, and canvas sails—invite readers to understand postcolonial poetry neither as offering clear vistas onto discernible histories nor as opaque linguistic surfaces refusing access to those histories, but instead as the glowing, warped loci of trans-historical insights that connect present-tense subjectivities with the traumas of the past. This approach to Walcott's poetry builds on the sense of translucence in world poetry that Vidyan Ravinthiran espouses in his reading of Agha Shahid Ali's "The Dacca Gauzes," and it also engages contemporary theories of literary Impressionism, especially in their tendency to wrestle with the concept of perceptual mediation and their curiosity about the political affordances of this aesthetic mode. Walcott's use of translucence makes him a true literary Impressionist but also an exceptional one—one whose embrace of mediated perception enables trans-historical epiphanies. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Literary Criticism src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Journal of Modern Literature is the property of Indiana University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Journal of Modern Literature holder: Indiana University Press dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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