Poem Title |
Original Publication |
CP Page no |
Cynthia's Ghost |
Raw Material, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, 2011 |
Not included in CP |
Length / Form Ten-line stanzas, laid out on the page in imitation of the elegiac meter (with alternate lines indented).
Allusion to Classical figure Cynthia, Chloris, Parthenië, Charon
Allusion to Classical place Tivoli, the Subura, Anio, Tibutine earth, Gates of Ivory and Horn, Styx
Relationship to Classical text Mahon's Cynthia is coursley comic ("shove over" [...] stricken with grief, sez you. Cheat! Lying sod!") and captures the humorous grotesque of Propertius' poem.
Close translation of words/phrases/excerpts The poem is a version of Propertius' Elegies IV, 7
Classical/post-Classical intertexts Robert Lowell's 'The Ghost' (Lord Weary's Castle, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1946) is a heightened and dramatic version of the same elegy, whereas Mahon's interpretation is characterised by bawdy humour.