Encomium of Helen: Derek Walcott's ethical twist in Omeros

10. June Scott offers valuable insights into the rhetorical use of gender categories in the articulation of historical discourse.

11. For the concept of colonial difference, see Mignolo.

12. Plunkett has the scar of a war wound; Philoctete has an open (but eventually healed) wound that represents the painful legacy of the Middle Passage; the narrator is fractured between the "here" of the island and the "elsewhere" of his overseas job.

13. For a thorough analysis of the significance of the trope of the wound in Omeros and Walcott's other works, see Ramazani.

14. See for example "The Muse of History," What the Twilight Says 36-64.

15. For divergent views on the seriousness of Gorgias's arguments, see Robert Wardy and the preface and notes to the Encomium by D. M. MacDowell.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux LLC for permission to quote from Omeros [c] 1990 by Derek Walcott.

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