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Derek Mahon: Ariadne on Naxos

Poem Title

Original Publication

CP Page no

Ariadne on Naxos

Life on Earth, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, 2008

Not included in CP

Length / Form Ovid's elegiac couplets become irregularly rhymed pentameter.

Allusion to Classical figure Theseus, Ariadne, Maenad, Minotaur

Allusion to Classical place Crete

Relationship to Classical text Approximately two thirds of the source text are omitted

Close translation of words/phrases/excerpts This is Mahon's interpretation of sections of Ovid's Heroides X

Comment This classically themed interpretation recalls the loneliness and sense of exile in Mahon's 'Calypso' (Harbour Lights, 2005) and is one of a number of his poems which depict classical figures in coastal scenes: see also ‘Harbour Lights’ (Harbour Lights, 2005), 'Quaderno' and 'Circe and Sirens' (both from Life on Earth), 'Ithaca', 'A Beached Whale' and 'Balcony of Europe' (An Autumn Wind, 2010) and 'Mediterranean' (Raw Material, 2011)

Derek Mahon