ABSTRACT The contribution of postcolonial writing to our understanding of precarity lies in its post-structuralist emphasis on the question of representation so that the act of representing precarity becomes discursively precarious. Gayatri Spivak’s foundational essay “Can the Subaltern Speak?” provides us with conceptual tools to problematize what may be called “discursive precarity” – that is, that set of enunciative conditions in which intellectuals speak on behalf of the precariat – but also run the risk of silencing them by substituting subaltern voices with their own. The article explores Derek Walcott’s Omeros as a poem of discursive precarity by examining a rhetorically unstable double-movement, wherein the poet-narrator’s identification with, and alienation from, the subaltern is dialectically and irremediably mediated by his own position of privilege. Paradoxically, the poem can only achieve legitimacy through the acknowledgement of its lack of legitimacy to sing of, and for, the subaltern.

中文翻译：

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下级会唱歌吗？德里克·沃尔科特 (Derek Walcott) 的《奥梅罗斯》(Omeros) 中的类比、异化和话语不稳定

摘要 后殖民写作对我们对不稳定状态的理解的贡献在于其后结构主义对再现问题的强调，从而使再现不稳定的行为在话语上变得不稳定。Gayatri Spivak 的基础论文“下属能说话吗？” 为我们提供了概念工具来对所谓的“话语不稳定”（即知识分子代表不稳定的人说话的那组表述条件）进行问题化，但也冒着通过用他们自己的声音代替底层声音来使他们沉默的风险。这篇文章通过检查修辞上不稳定的双重运动来探索德里克沃尔科特的奥梅罗斯作为一首话语不稳定的诗，其中诗人叙述者的认同和疏远，下层被他自己的特权地位辩证地和不可挽回地调解。矛盾的是，这首诗只能通过承认其缺乏合法性来歌唱和为底层人民而获得合法性。