SOURCE: "Derek Walcott's Theater of Assimilation," in Philological Papers, Vol. 25, February, 1979, pp. 86-93.

In the essay below, Hamner surveys the development of Walcott's drama through O Babylon! He underscores the playwright's assimilation of diverse cultural and theatrical influences in his works.

When Derek Walcott's earliest poems came out in 1947, when he was only nineteen years old, he was immediately hailed in his native West Indies as a prodigy. His first book of poetry In a Green Night (1962) led Robert Graves to proclaim, "Derek Walcott handles English with a closer understanding of its inner magic than most (if not any) of his English-born contemporaries." Today with six published volumes to his credit, and several literary prizes, he is one of the leading poets not only of the West Indies but internationally as well.

At the same time he is also an accomplished dramatist—having formed his own company, the...