19 pages • 38 minutes read
Ruins of a Great House
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
"A Far Cry from Africa" by Derek Walcott (1962)
Published ten years after “Great House,” Walcott's poem “A Far Cry from Africa” tackles colonialism and imperialism in the context of Africa. It is set during the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya, when native Kenyans fought for independence from British colonial rule. The uprising was very violent on both sides of the conflict. The poem is concerned with the speaker's internal dilemma about which side to support, exploring the speaker's own experience with colonization and identity.
"America" by Claude McKay (1921)
Claude McKay's “America” grapples with conflicting identity, in this case from the perspective of a Black American. McKay, a Jamaican American poet, works through his love and resentment towards the United States to resolve his mixed feelings about the nation that enables his oppression. A sonnet written during the Harlem Renaissance, “America” takes a very controversial stance on the might and enduring force of the United States and ultimately predicts its inevitable fall from power with delight.
"Night" by William Blake (1789)
William Blake’s poetry is characteristic of the Romantic literary movement. It focuses on nature and references the natural world's beauty and serenity. “Night” is essentially about humanity's susceptibility to evil, utilizing specific biblical images like the lion and the lamb to draw on religious iconography throughout the poem. Consistent in its form and rhyme scheme, “Night” maintains a tone of hopefulness and security for the speaker within the sanctuary of nature.
Further Literary Resources
Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial by Thomas Browne (1658)
Sir Thomas Browne was a gifted English polymath from upper-class lineage in the seventeenth century. Published in 1658, Urn Burial is a bizarre yet clever scholarly exploration of the burial customs of the early Anglo-Saxons. The work focuses on the discovery of forty to fifty ancient pots unearthed in Norfolk during the mid-1600s. The most memorable part of this work is the apotheosis featured in the fifth chapter, the section Walcott quotes in the epigraph of “Great House.” Although obscure in popular literature, Browne's work has been referenced and admired by numerous literary greats, including Edgar Allen Poe, James Joyce, Herman Melville, and Jorge Luis Borges.
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner (1929)
Probably the most famous work by the Southern Gothic novelist, The Sound and the Fury centers on the Compson family, former Southern aristocrats attempting to adapt as their family (and reputation) dissolve. Told from four different perspectives, the novel concentrates on the events of two singular days and the narrators' respective thoughts and feelings on those events. Faulkner is also a key figure in Modernism, as he employs stream of consciousness as a literary tool throughout this work.
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions by John Donne (1624)
Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions is a prose work by English poet and church cleric John Donne. Donne published it in 1624 after a severe bout with an unknown illness, now believed to be typhus. Devotions covers the topics of death, rebirth, and the Elizabethan theory of sickness as an intervention by God, demonstrating an outward reflection of a person’s inner sinfulness. The work has become famous for a few poignant lines that have now become common expressions, including “No man is an island” and “For whom the bell tolls.”
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A student reads Derek Walcott's 1953 poem “Ruins of a Great House.”
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By Derek Walcott
