[The] study of Walcott's career as a dramatist must begin with the play he regards as his first, Henri Christophe—and it is written in verse. (p. 52)
The plot unfolds in Haiti and concerns black characters for the most part but there is little besides to mark the play as West Indian. A quotation from Hamlet and one from Richard III, heading respectively each of the two parts of the play, are in keeping with the language Walcott puts into the mouths of illiterate ex-slaves…. The major problem is with the Jacobean polish on words and images that seems inconsistent with the rough-hewn dignity of the characters being portrayed. When Christophe utters fine poetic lines about his grief the sentiment rings hollow more for the archaic language than for the fact that Christophe himself plotted Toussaint's destruction. Even allowing for poetic license, there is nothing in this play to show of the bodily sweat that Christophe celebrates shortly before his death…. (p. 53)
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