Tony Harrison: The Pomegranates of Patmos

Allusion to Classical figure Persephone/Proserpina is indirectly alluded to.

Relationship to Classical text The image of pomegranate seeds is used repeatedly to illustrate the themes of sex and sensuality, death and apocalypse, thereby colouring the poems central, Christian subject with suggestions of the myth of Persephone/ Proserpina.

Close translation of words/phrases/excerpts the God with gargantuan ΓΡΑΨON / commanding that crackpot to write’ (the imperative ‘write...’ features repeatedly in the New Testament Greek of the Book of Revelation).

Classical/post-Classical intertexts The bible’s Book of Revelation.