Derek Mahon: Under the Volcanoes

Length / Form  Plato, Pliny

Allusion to Classical place Atlantis, Hesperides, Pompeii

Relationship to Classical text The modern tourist destination is given mythical overtones through references to Atlantis (taken from Plato's Timaeus, 25a) and the Hesperides. There are also allusions to the death of Pliny the Elder at Pompeii and of his nephew's flight from Misenum, as given in the Younger Pliny's letters (Epistulae VI, 16 and 20). Mahon echoes the latter's descriptions of the eruption of Vesuvius in a depiction of himself at Kinsale, beset by gales and attempting to "wring/ form from the chaos choking up the mind."

Classical/post-Classical intertexts The title is borrowed from Malcolm Lowry's novel of 1947 (M. Lowry, Under the Volcano. London: Cape, 1947). As a holiday maker in Lanzarote, Mahon contrasts himself with Louis MacNeice, "who chose Iceland for his holiday stuff". Mahon also makes reference to the Lanzarote artist and architect César Manrique, whose home (now a tourist destination) is partly constructed within volcanic lava bubbles created by eruptions in the 18^th century.

Comment In the cold light of Kinsale and with the cynicism of old age, Mahon sets to "de-rhapsodizing" the mythologized landscape.

Note Also collected in New Collected Poems, Gallery Press, 2011, p.361-363