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Derek Mahon: Ithaca

Poem Title

Original Publication

CP Page no

Ithaca

An Autumn Wind, Oldcastle: The Gallery Press, 2010

Not included in CP (See also Note below)

Allusion to Classical figure Phaeacians, Odysseus, Athene, nymphs

Allusion to Classical place Ithaca

Relationship to Classical text Mahon swiftly skips through the epic verse, omitting much of the narrative detail, to produce a poem which is more comic than heroic in tone.

Close translation of words/phrases/excerpts Based on sections of text from Odyssey XIII, 187-365.

Classical/post-Classical intertexts Michael Longley's poem 'Homecoming', in Gorse Fires (London: Secker & Warburg, 1991), is also based on Odysseus' return to Ithaca.

Comment Athene's description of Ithaca ("it boasts fine pasture for cows and goats,/ oak, pine and boatyards") might equally describe Ireland, and the boatyards, certainly, are Mahon's addition (at the time of writing Mahon had returned to the country, to live in the coastal town of Kinsale). Note the parallel themes in the next-but-one poem 'A Quiet Spot' (p.17), in which he contemplates his return to a seaside town, after "many a fugitive year/ of travel".

Note Also collected in New Collected Poems, Gallery Press, 2011, p.329-330.

Derek Mahon