The purpose of this research is to examine Derek Walcott's Omeros as an example of minor literature as described by Deleuze and Guattari. The plan of the research will be to set forth the general line of argument regarding minor-literature critique advanced by Deleuze and Guattari and then to discuss ways in which the pattern of ideas in Omeros as well as the means by which these ideas are communicated illustrates the minor-literature thesis and advances its meaning and standing as a method of literary criticism.
Although their argument is dense and complex, the main thrust of explanation of a minor literature by Deleuze and Guattari is that its creators are members of marginalized populations in a culture whose mainstream social and literary attributes are interpreted as a locus of power that becomes the platform for narrative and poetic discourse shaped as criticism and evaluation on one hand and as sociocultural coping strategy for both author and his literary instrument on the other.
When Deleuze and Guattari speak of the "problem of expression" (16), as applied to Kafka, they are referring to the difficulty that a practitioner of minor literature has in making his voice heard, either because of practical career constraints or because of the unfamiliarity of the mainstream with literary articulations from the margin. On the other hand, the minor-literature practitioner is uniquely positioned to give voice and authority to the margins by claiming rhetorical and axiological legitimacy for marginalized linguistic and narrative conventions and by either interpreting or appropriating for use the found or given conventions of the mainstream.
In this regard, Deleuze and Guattari make two points. First, they say, minor literature is political inasmuch as it articulates the difference between mainstream and margin; they cite Kafka's reference to the "boundary" (Deleuze and Guattari 17) where the minor-literary effort encounters t...