Tony Harrison: Queuing for Charon

Allusion to Classical figure Charon, Orpheus

Allusion to Classical place Crete, Lesbos, Styx

Relationship to Classical text Brings together themes of memory, history of concentration camps, Crete and Greece, dolphins, German tourists and the Lesbos ferry (and that of Charon). These motifs are unified through the image of Orpheus, which elides with that of Harrison in his role as poet. Reflects on failure of poetry in the face of violence and war – ‘Poetry since the Holocaust / ‘s a Stygian stowaway’.

Classical/post-Classical intertexts The German philospher Theodor Adorno's suggestion that 'to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric' ('An Essay on Cultural Criticism and Society,' (p.34 in Adorno's Prisms, trans. Samuel and Shierry Weber: MIT press, 1967).