Derek Walcott (1930 —): A New Caribbean Aesthetic I had no nation now but the imagination. I met history once, but he ain’t recognize me. (CP 350)

In this paper, the researcher uncovers a new aesthetic that Derek Walcott, a Caribbean poet, dramatist, writer and recipient of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature, adopts in his writings. This is achieved through a thorough analysis of his play Dream on Monkey Mountain (1970) and his poem “The Schooner Flight” which appeared for the first time in the 1979 volume, The Star-Apple Kingdom. Through these two seminal literary works, the researcher shows how Walcott, unlike his Caribbean contemporaries, views history differently — the thing that eventually leads to the emergence of a new Caribbean aesthetic.  “Walcott has long adopted a quizzical stance over the discourse of history, problematizing its function and usefulness. His views, although complex, have remained remarkably consistent over a long career” (Burnett 64). Differentiating between history as time and history as myth, he creates a unique identity for himself and for his people. He does not contemplate the shipwreck as his contemporaries do. The way towards transcendence for the Caribbean writers and people, so Walcott believes, is to resort to who and what they are now, not to their history with its glories and disasters.