Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Derek Walcott's poem "Codicil" is a deeply introspective work that grapples with themes of identity, exile, aging, and the artist’s struggle to reconcile conflicting influences. The title, "Codicil", which refers to an addition or amendment to a will, hints at a revision or re-examination of the speaker’s life, offering a moment of reflection and reckoning. Through vivid imagery and a tone that vacillates between resignation and defiance, the poem captures the poet’s internal conflict as he confronts his cultural identity, his place as a writer, and his feelings about mortality.

The poem opens with a striking admission of division: "Schizophrenic, wrenched by two styles, / one a hack’s hired prose, I earn / me exile." The speaker describes himself as torn between two styles, reflecting his struggle with cultural and linguistic duality. The word "schizophrenic" suggests a fractured sense of self, split between the demands of different identities or traditions. The "hack’s hired prose" implies that the speaker feels compromised, perhaps referring to the tension between writing for commercial purposes versus writing with artistic integrity. This division is not merely intellectual but deeply personal, as the speaker's creative and personal conflicts lead him into "exile"—a metaphor for both physical displacement and emotional estrangement.

The speaker then trudges along a "sickle, moonlit beach," where he attempts to "slough off / this love of ocean that’s self-love." The moonlit beach, an iconic image of Caribbean geography, becomes a site of internal conflict. The ocean, often a symbol of beauty and escape, is here associated with self-love, perhaps hinting at the speaker’s complicated relationship with his homeland and identity. The effort to "slough off" this attachment suggests a desire to detach from the past, to free oneself from the weight of cultural and personal history.

The powerful declaration, "To change your language you must change your life," serves as a key turning point in the poem. Language, for the speaker, is more than a tool of communication—it is deeply tied to identity, history, and self-perception. This line implies that true transformation requires more than a superficial shift in expression; it demands a fundamental reorientation of one’s existence. The speaker, however, acknowledges the difficulty of this task, admitting that he "cannot right old wrongs." The waves, which "tire of horizon and return," reflect the cyclical nature of time and effort, suggesting that the speaker feels trapped in a pattern of repetition, unable to break free from the past.

The poem’s imagery becomes increasingly bleak as the speaker observes the decay around him. The "beached, rotting pirogues" and the "venomous beaked cloud" of gulls create a sense of desolation, reinforcing the speaker’s feelings of disillusionment. The image of the best minds rotting "like dogs / for scraps of flavour" highlights the speaker's disappointment with the intellectual and cultural decay he perceives in his surroundings. This sense of stagnation is compounded by the speaker’s personal crisis as he confronts the passage of time: "I am nearing middle / age, burnt skin / peels from my hand like paper, onion-thin." The peeling skin serves as a metaphor for the speaker’s vulnerability and the stripping away of identity, exposing the fragile, ephemeral nature of life.

The allusion to Peer Gynt in the line "like Peer Gynt’s riddle" further emphasizes the speaker’s existential crisis. In Henrik Ibsen’s play "Peer Gynt", the protagonist embarks on a journey of self-discovery, only to realize that his identity is fragmented and elusive. By invoking Peer Gynt, the speaker suggests a similar sense of alienation and uncertainty, as if peeling back the layers of identity reveals nothing substantial at the core.

The final section of the poem delves into the speaker’s confrontation with death. "At heart there is nothing, not the dread / of death. I know too many dead." This stark statement reflects a sense of numbness and resignation. The speaker has become familiar with death, to the point where it no longer holds fear or mystery. The dead are "all familiar, all in character," suggesting that death has become normalized, part of the fabric of life.

The imagery of fire and ash reinforces this confrontation with mortality: "On fire, / the flesh no longer fears that furnace mouth / of earth." The speaker accepts the inevitability of death, whether through cremation or burial, and no longer sees it as something to fear. Instead, the "clouding, unclouding sickle moon" continues to wither the beach like "a blank page," symbolizing the repetitive and indifferent forces of nature that erase and rewrite existence without emotion.

The poem concludes on a note of ambiguous defiance: "All its indifference is a different rage." This line encapsulates the poem’s central tension between resignation and resistance. The indifference of nature and life’s cyclical forces may seem passive, but they contain their own form of rage—a quiet, unrelenting force that continues to shape and erode the world, including the speaker himself.

In "Codicil", Derek Walcott explores the complexities of identity, exile, and mortality through vivid and often unsettling imagery. The speaker’s internal struggle with cultural and linguistic duality, combined with his reflections on aging and death, creates a deeply personal and universal meditation on the human condition. Through his lyrical exploration of these themes, Walcott invites readers to contemplate the ways in which language, place, and time shape our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.

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