Filottete in Omeros di Derek Walcott.

The article aims at examining the importance of Philoctetes in Derek Walcott's Omeros, published in 1990, and wants to highlight the analogies between the modern character and Sophocles' Philoctetes, through the analysis of particular passages and quotations from the poem. Walcott's Philoctetes is a fisherman, who lives on the island of Saint Lucia, where the poet was born. He is tormented by an incurable, bad-smelling sore on his shin and finds comfort to his pain in alcohol. The hero is decontextualized from the classical events: the review concerns only the character himself. Walcott writes in Omeros that there is no difference between him and Philoctetes, as they share "the one wound, the same cure". The article analyses the sense of this statement. For both of them the cure is in the island and in its traditions: for Philoctetes it comes from a curative root and an animist ritual, while for Walcott it consists in returning to his homeland and recounting the true nature of his people in verses. Philoctetes becomes, in conclusion, the alter ego of Derek Walcott.