(Page numbers given refer to Collected Poems: Derek Mahon [CP]: The Gallery Press, 1999)
Poem Title |
Original Publication |
How to Live |
The Hunt by Night, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982 |
CP Page no |
78 |
Length / Form |
|
Allusion to Classical figure |
Leuconoë |
Allusion to Classical place |
|
Relationship to Classical text |
This is a fairly free translation but it stays close to the sense and content of the source text. |
Close translation of words/phrases/excerpts |
The poem is a translation of Horace’s Odes I, ix (not I, ii, as erroneously given in the Collected Poems) |
Classical/post-Classical intertexts |
|
Further Comment |
Arthur McGuinnes notes that the title of this translation echoes the example said to have been set by Mahon’s poetic predecessor (and classical scholar), Louis MacNeice, in Mahon’s poem ‘In Carrowdore Churchyard’ (‘This, you implied, is how we ought to live’: CP, 17). (p.135 in A. E. McGuinnes, ‘Cast a Wary Eye: Derek Mahon's Classical Perspective.’ (The Yearbook of English Studies17 (1987), p.128-142).) |
Further Analysis |
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