Taking Notes: 'Hyperion: Some Notes on Structure and Literary Antecedents' (1996) by Michael J. Mitchell

這篇短文概略追蹤了 Dan Simmons 名作 Hyperion 和 The Fall of Hyperion 的文學源頭，解說其內容和結構與《坎特伯利故事集》、濟慈同名之未完成史詩的關係。以下摘錄小說中角色名、地名引用與文字遊戲的部分：

閱讀出處：
Michael J. Mitchell, "Hyperion: Some Notes on Structure and Literary Antecedents" in Science Fiction: A Review of Speculative Literature, 13(2) (No. 38), (1996), pp. 15-19.

p. 18

Simmons plays some interesting onomastic games in his novels, some of the more obvious being:

* Brawne Lamia ==> (Fanny) Brawne + "Lamia" - serpent headed nymph cheated in love. The title and subject of a poem by Keats. Both Fanny and Lamia are sylphlike - unlike Brawne, who as a native of Lusus is built like a brick outhouse.

* Leigh Hunt ==> Leigh Hunt (1784-1859) - a contemporary of Keats, poet, journalist, critic, playwright (generally an ooportunist for the cash), jailed for libel, travelled to Italy at the behest of Byron and Shelley.

* Meina Gladstone ==> William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1898) - liberal politician, Christian, used the Irish issue to get elected and force reconciliation the first time he was in office - pushed the "Home Rule" bill for Ireland, which was defeated.

* Lady Philomel ==> in the most familiar variation of the story, Philomela is the nightingale. Philomela is seduced by Tereus, husband of her sister, Procne. He then cuts her tongut out and hides her. Philomela weaves the story in a robe and sends it to Procne. The two sisters revenge themselves by killing Itys (Tereus and Procne's son) and serving him to Tereus as lunch. Tereus pursues them and the gods transform Tereus into a hoopoe, Procne to a swallow and Philiomela to a nightingale.

* Martin Silenus ==> Silenus leader of satyrs - sleep, wine and music. "He was conceived of as an inspired prophet, who knew all the past and the most distant future ...". This deity was remarkable for his wisdom; his drunkenness being regarded as his inspiration.

* Sol Weintraub ==> Solomon who has to recapitulate Abraham's decision.

* Jacktown ==> Jack -> John + town - a conflation of the colloquial "John" plus town. The "colloquial" town that has grown up around the capital

p. 19

city of Keats.

* Rachel ==> Moneta ==> Mnemosyne. Mnemosyne is one of the daughters of Uranus, mother of the nine muses by Zeus. She is the muse of memory. Rachel's line, therefore, is a Keatsian in-joke.

"Moneta," she mused. "It means 'Admonisher' in Latin.

Appropriate, I will let him choose between that and Mnemosyne - 'memory' - for my name." (p. 453)

Keats's poems are recollections narrated by the muse of memory. Rachel, a character doomed to live backwards in time (rather like Carroll's White Queen), reveals part of the future.

* Ummon [雲門文偃] ==> the third most famous classical Zen master.

* Albedo ==> the fraction of light reflected back by a surface.

* Shrike ==> sometimes called the butcher bird, has a hooked bill and has gained its name from a habit of impaling its prey on thorns. (From the Old English "to shriek".)