The representation of madness in Clarke's poem Mnemosyne Lay in Dust

Essay from the year 2001 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,5 (A), University College Cork (English), course: En 3004 Introduction to Anglo-Irish Literature, language: English, abstract: In his narrative poem Mnemosyne Lay in Dust, Austin Clarke writes about a personal experience, which he has made some 50 years before he first published this poem, when he suffered a mental breakdown. Although, it is his own experience, he does not write in first person but uses a protagonist, Maurice Devane, and presents this trauma in third person to the reader. This could be, because this experience, even if it has happened half a century ago, is a very personal one and using a third person narrator possibly makes it easier for him to write about it. The protagonist Maurice Devane experiences the loss of self: he looses his memory, he does not know himself any more.

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