Derek Walcott’s The Sea is History: An Archive

Abstract

History is an ideological construct of colonialism. An archive is a storehouse of historical documents or records. The present paper is an attempt to explore an alternative history created by   Derek Walcott, the West Indian poet and playwright   whose works explore the Caribbean culture. He presents the history through the art of poetry while answering the questions - Where are your monuments, your battles, martyrs? Where is your tribal memory?Where is your Renaissance? Asked inthepoem TheSeaisHistory. Walcott shows the history of slavery, genocide and miscegenation with allusions. His poetry resonates Fanon’s remark, “The settler makes history: his life is an epoch, an Odyssey.”