Poem Title |
Original Publication |
CP Page no |
XV: Smoke
|
The Yellow Book, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, 1997 |
253-254 |
Allusion to Classical figure Xenophon
Allusion to classical place Refers to ‘Elysian yellows and blues’, Xenophon’s Persia.
Classical/post-Classical intertexts The declaration ‘away my wind-harp and my dejection odes’ alludes to Coleridge’s poetry and opium-fuelled reveries, i.e. ‘The Eolian Harp’ (1795) and ‘Dejection: An Ode’ (1802). The poem is crammed with intertextual references relating to decadence and the poetic imagination, of which the classical represents just one strand. (See p.297-8 in H. Haughton, The Poetry of Derek Mahon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.)