I don't feel I've arrived home until I get on the beach. All my life, the theater of the sea has been a very strong thing.
Derek WalcottRead
The history of the world - by which, of course, we mean Europe - is a record of intertribal lacerations, of ethnic cleansings.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that European history is marked by conflict and violence among different tribes and ethnic groups.
Derek Walcott's quote highlights the often brutal nature of European history, emphasizing how it has been characterized by violent conflicts between various ethnic and tribal groups. This reflection reveals that much of the historical narrative is rooted in the struggles for power and identity, bringing to light the darker aspects of humanity's past.
Themes
HistoryConflictEuropeViolenceEthnic CleansingTribalism
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on European history, one might use this quote to emphasize the theme of conflict.
More from Derek Walcott
All quotes βCreating a poem is a continual process of re-creating your ignorance, in the sense of not knowing what's coming next.
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A long time ago, I thought, as a writer in the Caribbean, 'I don't ever want to have to write 'It was great in Paris.'' Because I don't think, proportionately speaking, that one's experience in a city as opposed to, say, a village in St. Lucia, is superior to the other.
Derek WalcottRead
My mother was a schoolteacher and very, very encouraging. She understood what it meant when I said I wanted to be a writer; both me and my brother wrote.
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When I went to college - when I read Shakespeare or Dickens or Scott - I just felt that, as a citizen of England, a British citizen, this was as much my heritage as any schoolboy's. That is one of the things the Empire taught, that apart from citizenship, the synonymous inheritance of the citizenship was the literature.
Derek WalcottRead
The truest writers are those who see language not as a linguistic process but as a living element.
Derek WalcottRead
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