Tony Harrison: The Gaze of the Gorgon

Length / Form Film Poem

Allusion to Classical figure Gorgon; Achilles; Hector; Andromache; Terpsichore; Melpomene (with tragic mask); Homer.

Allusion to Classical place Troy, Pompeii

Relationship to Classical text Harrison takes as the central figure of his poem the Gorgon, featured on a temple pediment which Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany claimed to have excavated in Corfu in the lead-up to the First World War. The Gorgon thereby comes to symbolise the terror and destruction unleashed in the ensuing century. Iliadic references predominate in the central section.

Comment  Directed by Peter Symes.