That poem by MacNeice may be the most beautiful thing I have ever read. Hoping to find more information on it, I searched for it on the web and was shocked to find it posted on site after site, not once accompanied by a copyright legend. I sometimes wonder if I'm the only person who is bothering to obey the copyright laws.
I wish that I could recognize more allusions, and use more of them, but being anti-Christian as I am, I can't bring myself to read that damn book (I don't mind reading ABOUT it, but that's as far as I will go). As for allusions to mythology, I learned all the myths in school but don't have the desire to revisit them. It takes a certain kind of mind to be endlessly curious about things which don't apply to one's life, and I just don't have that curiosity. Mezey and Murphy (and his 30,000 memorized lines) have it, but I can't be what I'm not.
However, I do get lucky once in a while. I just referenced Cain in one of my poems, and quite successfully, although the reference has such a classic quality, I'm concerned it has been done before.
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