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Derek Mahon: The Chimeras

Poem Title

Original Publication

CP Page no

The Chimeras

Adaptations, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, 2006

Not included in CP

Length / Form Fourteen-line sonnets

Allusion to Classical figure Siren, Orpheus, Dionysus, Muse, Virgil, Iris (Kneph, Isis, Cybele, Hermes, Osiris), Anteros, Antaeus, Cadmus/Jason, Daphne, Python, sibyl, Artemis/Diana, Pythagoras

Allusion to Classical place Posilippo, Styx, Cocytus, Delphi, Arch of Constantine

Classical/post-Classical intertexts The eight poems in this series are reworkings of Gerard de Nerval's sonnet sequence Les Chimères (1854, appended to the short story collection Les filles du feu).

Comment Mahon first published these translations as a separate collection in 1982, Dublin: The Gallery Press. 

Derek Mahon