This article compares how two contemporaneous Anglophone Caribbean writers – Trinidadian V.S. Naipaul (1932–2018) and St. Lucian Derek Walcott (1930–2017) – explore the challenges posed to ontological security and nationhood in the Caribbean by considering how myth (broadly interpreted), knowledge, and ignorance of Caribbean history interact in understandings of their respective islands. The article focuses on one work by each – Naipaul’s The Loss of El Dorado and Walcott’s Omeros – which mediate myth and history through artistic discourse in a similar way. Hitherto the personal and literary differences between Naipaul and Walcott have been stressed by their critics more than their similarities; this article points towards the latter. Both writers are aware of how the presences and absences of Caribbean history can give rise to the mythologization of both Caribbean and foreign nations. They condemn the emotional and moral simplicities which both imperial and anti‐imperial mythologizing involve. Yet both of them write works which perform as well as condemn such mythologization with regard to their own islands. Whilst not rejecting a careful handling of documentary sources, both writers are aware that recreations of history inevitably involve imagination and desire, and as creative writers they embrace this premise.

中文翻译：

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德里克·沃尔科特（Derek Walcott）和VS奈保（VS Naipaul）的神话，历史和民族观念

本文比较了两位同时代的加勒比海英语作家，特立尼达VS奈保尔（1932–2018）和圣卢西安·德里克·沃尔科特（1930–2017）–通过考虑神话（广泛解释）探索了加勒比地区本体安全和民族化所面临的挑战加勒比海历史的知识，知识和无知在对各自岛屿的理解中相互作用。本文着重介绍了每个人的一部作品-Naipaul的《埃尔多拉多的失落》和Walcott的Omeros–以相似的方式通过艺术话语调解神话和历史。迄今为止，批评家们强调了奈保尔和沃尔科特之间的个人和文学差异，而不仅仅是他们的相似之处。本文指向后者。两位作家都知道加勒比海历史的存在与缺失会如何引起加勒比海国家和外国的神话化。他们谴责了帝国主义和反帝制神话化所涉及的情感和道德上的简单性。然而，他们俩都撰写了关于他们自己的岛屿的作品，这些作品表现并谴责这种神话般的神话化。两位作家都没有拒绝对文献资料的谨慎处理，但他们意识到，历史的再现不可避免地涉及想象力和欲望，而作为有创造力的作家，他们接受了这一前提。