The Gaze of the Gorgon

The Gaze of the Gorgon
Cover of the book version of the work
Written byTony Harrison
Screenplay byTony Harrison
Based onThe Gaze of the Gorgon book of poems
CountryBritain
LanguageEnglish

The Gaze of the Gorgon is a film-poem created in 1992 by English poet and playwright Tony Harrison which examines the politics of conflict in the 20th century using the Gorgon and her petrifying gaze as a metaphor for the actions of the elites during wars and other crises and the muted response and apathy these traumatic events generate among the masses seemingly petrified by modern Gorgons gazing at them from pediments constructed by the elites.

The verse-documentary is aimed at describing the "unspeakable horrors and atrocities of the twentieth century" through the Medusa paradigm and it was broadcast on BBC-2 in October 1992.[1] According to literary critics, Harrison's work acts as a mirror through which the audience can gaze at the horrors without being petrified. The video-poem has been described as the "right lyre for the twentieth century".[2][3]

The narration of the film is done through the mouth of a statue of the Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, which Kaiser Wilhelm II had removed from the Achilleion palace on Corfu after he took over ownership from Empress Elisabeth of Austria. The film describes the connection between Heine, the Corfu Gorgon and Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had an obsession with the Gorgon.[4][5][6][7] Harrison has also published a poetry book based on the same concept.[8] The book version received the Whitbread Prize for Poetry.[9][10]

  1. ^ Antony Rowland (2001). Tony Harrison and the Holocaust. Liverpool University Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-85323-516-3. Retrieved 10 May 2013. The Gaze of the Gorgon - broadcast in October 1992 on BBC2,...
  2. ^ C. C. Barfoot (1994). In Black and Gold: Contiguous Traditions in Post-war British and Irish Poetry. Rodopi. p. 80. ISBN 978-90-5183-675-2. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
  3. ^ Roger Griffin (8 November 2010). Modernismo y fascismo: La sensación de comienzo bajo Mussolini y Hitler. Ediciones Akal. p. 265. ISBN 978-84-460-2972-4. Retrieved 9 May 2013.
  4. ^ BFI. "The Gaze of the Gorgon". Archived from the original on 13 December 2013.
  5. ^ Röhl, John C. G. (1998). Young Wilhelm: The Kaiser's Early Life, 1859-1888. Cambridge University Press. p. 297. ISBN 978-0-521-49752-7. Retrieved 4 May 2013. After the purchase of the 'Achilleion', Kekule was invited by the Kaiser to go to Corfu to provide advice on the positioning of the ... 94 Without a doubt, Wilhelm's lifelong obsession with the statue of the Gorgon unearthed in Corfu stems from the ...
  6. ^ Merten, Karl (2004). Antike Mythen - Mythos Antike: posthumanistische Antikerezeption in der englischsprachigen Lyrik der Gegenwart. Wilhelm Fink Verlag. pp. 105–106. ISBN 978-3-7705-3871-3. Retrieved 4 May 2013. der Räume und Kunstwerke des Achilleions hat, von entsprechendem dokumentarischem Filmmaterial begleitet.
  7. ^ Michael Shanks (1996). The Classical Archaeology of Greece: Experiences of the Discipline. Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Incorporated. pp. 169–170. ISBN 978-0-415-08521-2. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
  8. ^ Tony Harrison (1992). The gaze of the Gorgon. Bloodaxe Books. ISBN 978-1-85224-238-1. Retrieved 5 May 2013.
  9. ^ "Tony Harrison". Academy of American Poets.
  10. ^ "Oxford Reference". Oxford Reference.