Derek Mahon: A Kensington Notebook

Allusion to Classical figure  Mnemosyne, Eros, the Muse

Classical/post-Classical intertexts Ezra Pound’s Hugh Selwyn Mauberley offers the template for Mahon’s pastiche and the precedent for his strewn classical references. (London: Ovid Press, 1920) Pound’s poem refers to ‘το καλόν/ Decreed in the market place’ but Mahon makes Pound himself the ‘Prophet of to kalòn.’

Further Comment:     Further classicizing references are made to ‘agape’ and ‘the sacred flame’.