(Page numbers given refer to Collected Poems: Derek Mahon [CP]: The Gallery Press, 1999)
Poem Title |
Original Publication |
The Antigone Riddle |
The Snow Party, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975 |
CP Page no |
66 |
Length / Form |
A short riddle in two parts. |
Allusion to Classical figure |
Antigone, but only in the title.
|
Allusion to Classical place |
|
Relationship to Classical text |
. |
Close translation of words/phrases/excerpts |
|
Classical/post-Classical intertexts |
|
Further Comment |
This poem could be seen as providing a coda to ‘Glengormley (CP, p.14), which quotes the translated line from Sophocles Antigone ‘Wonders are many, and none is more wonderful than man’ (Antigone, 332). |
Further Analysis |
The first five words of the poem are all English derivatives from Latin or Greek (‘Elocution, logic, political science,/ Antibiotics’). |