Other Prominent Lines
The phrase "wilderness of mirrors" from the poem has been alluded to by many other writers and artists. It has been used as the titles of plays by Van Badham and Charles Evered, of novels by Max Frisch, and of albums by bands such as Waysted. Rock singer Fish entitled his first solo album Vigil in a Wilderness of Mirrors.
Some commentators believe that James Jesus Angleton took the phrase from this poem when he described the confusion and strange loops of espionage and counter-intelligence, such as the Double Cross System, as a "wilderness of mirrors". It thence entered and has since become commonplace in the vocabulary of writers of spy novels or of popular historical writing about espionage. It was the title of an episode of the television series JAG where the protagonist is subjected to disinformation.
Another prominent line in the poem, "In depraved May, dogwood and chestnut, flowering judas/To be eaten, to be divided, to be drunk," is the origin of the title of Katherine Anne Porter's first collection of short stories, Flowering Judas and Other Stories (1930).
Read more about this topic: Gerontion
Famous quotes containing the words prominent and/or lines:
“I should say that the most prominent scientific men of our country, and perhaps of this age, are either serving the arts and not pure science, or are performing faithful but quite subordinate labors in particular departments. They make no steady and systematic approaches to the central fact.... There is wanting constant and accurate observation with enough of theory to direct and discipline it. But, above all, there is wanting genius.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To understand
The signs that stars compose, we need depend
Only on stars that are entirely there
And the apparent space between them. There
Never need be lines between them, puzzling
Our sense of what is what.”
—John Hollander (b. 1929)