Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Derek Walcott’s "Midsummer: 2" is a rich and evocative exploration of time, place, and the intersection of history with personal reflection. Set in Rome, a city steeped in layers of ancient and Renaissance history, the poem blends vivid imagery of the city’s past with personal and cultural meditations on exile and identity. Through classical allusions, religious symbolism, and a powerful use of juxtaposition, Walcott creates a dialogue between the present and the past, the sacred and the mundane.

The poem opens with the line, "Companion in Rome, whom Rome makes as old as Rome," immediately situating the speaker and their companion within the context of the eternal city. Rome, a city so ancient that its history permeates everything, transforms those who dwell within it, making them part of its ancient story. This companion, like the speaker, becomes "old as that peeling fresco whose flaking paint / is the clouds." The fresco, a representation of art and history, is decaying, its paint crumbling like the clouds in the sky, suggesting the passage of time and the impermanence of all things, even great works of art.

The companion is compared to "young St. Jerome / with his rock vault," invoking the image of the early Christian scholar and hermit, who translated the Bible into Latin. St. Jerome, often depicted in solitude, working with texts in the isolation of his cave, becomes a parallel for the companion, who is "muttering a line / that your exiled country will soon learn by heart." This reference to exile reflects Walcott’s own experience as a poet from the Caribbean, exiled not in a physical sense, but through the cultural and historical displacement inherent in colonialism. The companion’s muttering of lines suggests the act of creating poetry, which, like Jerome’s translations, seeks to preserve and transmit meaning across time and space.

The poem shifts to a description of the city in midsummer, where the "furnace casts everything in bronze." This image of intense heat solidifying the city into metal evokes both the physical environment of Rome in summer and the sense of timelessness that the city exudes. The traffic, "flowing in slow coils," mirrors the ancient, measured pace of Rome’s history, as well as the ritualistic movements of religious practices, likened to the "doors of a baptistry." Even a "kitten's eyes blaze with Byzantine icons," blending the sacred and the everyday, as if the spiritual and historical legacy of Rome is so pervasive that it imbues even the smallest, most ordinary aspects of life.

The old woman "in black," who "unwrinkling your sheet with a palm," becomes a personification of the city itself. Her "home is Rome, its history is her house," suggesting that she embodies the city’s vast and complex past. The image of every "Caesar’s life" shrinking "to a candle's column in her saucer" is a powerful metaphor for the way history is condensed and domesticated over time. Great figures like Caesar, once the rulers of empires, are reduced to small, flickering symbols of memory. The old woman’s role as caretaker of this history is further emphasized by the line, "Salt cleans their bloodstained togas," where the violence and grandeur of Rome’s imperial past is metaphorically washed away.

Walcott deepens the connection between history and the domestic sphere with the image of the woman "stacking up the popes like towels in cathedral drawers." This line captures the juxtaposition between the sacred and the ordinary, as even the most revered religious figures are reduced to everyday objects in her hands. The "domes of onions" in her kitchen, which evoke the architecture of Rome’s grand cathedrals, reinforce the blending of the domestic and the sacred. She slices "a light, as thick as cheese, into epochs," suggesting that history is something tangible, something that can be divided and portioned out, much like food. The kitchen, a place of nourishment and daily life, becomes a space where history is not only remembered but consumed.

The poem’s imagery becomes more expansive and surreal with the line, "Her kitchen wall flakes like an atlas where, once, / Hic dracones was written." The reference to "Hic dracones," meaning "Here be dragons," invokes the ancient practice of marking unknown territories on maps with mythical creatures. This allusion to unexplored and dangerous lands contrasts with the familiar domestic setting of the kitchen, suggesting that even the known world—represented by Rome’s history—was once a place of mystery and fear. The mention of "unchristened cannibals" gnawing on coconuts like Ugolino, a reference to Dante’s "Inferno", further emphasizes the connection between the exotic, the unknown, and the brutal aspects of history.

The poem concludes with a reflection on time, death, and the poet’s own place within this vast historical framework. "Hell's hearth is as cold as Pompeii's" connects the destruction of Pompeii, frozen in time by volcanic ash, to the eternal punishment of hell, suggesting that both are places where time has stopped. The speaker acknowledges the inevitability of decay and loss, yet there is a sense of acceptance in the line, "We're punished by bells as gentle as lilies." The punishment, though inevitable, is softened by the beauty of the bells, which evoke both the sound of religious observance and the passage of time.

Walcott’s final lines shift from Rome to his own Caribbean homeland: "Corals up to their windows in sand are my sacred domes, / gulls circling a seine are the pigeons of my St. Mark's." Here, the speaker draws a parallel between the ancient, sacred spaces of Rome and the natural world of the Caribbean. The coral reefs, gulls, and mackerel become the speaker’s "sacred domes" and "legions," suggesting that the Caribbean landscape holds its own kind of reverence and history. The imagery of the "silver legions of mackerel" racing through "catacombs" suggests that, just as Rome’s history is hidden beneath its surface, the Caribbean has its own depths of meaning and memory.

In "Midsummer: 2," Walcott masterfully intertwines the history and mythology of Rome with his own reflections on exile, identity, and the passage of time. Through vivid imagery and classical allusions, the poem explores the ways in which history is preserved, domesticated, and remembered. By connecting the grandeur of Rome with the natural beauty of the Caribbean, Walcott suggests that history and memory are not confined to any one place but are part of a larger, universal experience of time, loss, and the search for meaning.

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