Merlin | the episode titles

[merlocmod]

OK, I think I went a bit mad this week - but not without a bit of enabling from others! (I don't know if that's meant to excuse it or not... :-)

Anyway, I started compiling a list of all the literary allusions and some possible meanings for the episode titles throughout the five seasons of Merlin, and it all quickly got out of hand. You can find

Comments

[archaeologist_d]

From Remedies for all ills, Edwin Muirden is probably a nod to the poet, Edwin Muir who wrote Merlin in which the title for the last 2 episodes were taken.

O Merlin in your crystal cave
Deep in the diamond of the day,
Will there ever be a singer
Whose music will smooth away
The furrow drawn by Adam's finger
Across the memory and the wave?
Or a runner who'll outrun
Man's long shadow driving on,
Break through the gate of memory
And hang the apple on the tree?
Will your magic ever show
The sleeping bride shut in her bower,
The day wreathed in its mound of snow
and Time locked in his tower?

I see you've talked about it for the last episodes.

I believe the poem is about fate and how we can't escape it. Also about longing and loss. A real nod to the last episodes.

[merlocmod]

Thank you for this! Now I re-read the poem with your thoughts in mind, I see more meaning in it. I'm afraid I was never much good with poetry! But yes, as you say, so very perfect for the resolution to our beloved show. ♥

[archaeologist_d]

310 - I often thought The Queen of Hearts was based on the Lewis Carroll Alice series.

411 The Hunter’s Heart - I thought it was a good play on words since hart is a stag and apparently Shakespeare used to do puns with heart and hart. It's also used in heraldry.

[merlocmod]

Thank you, hon!

I'm sure you're right about the Lewis Carroll reference, though I hesitated to mention it because it carries such negative connotations! :-) Still, they could have meant it ironically - and in any case, I suppose it's such a common term due to the playing card, and then all the other uses of it only add to the layers of meaning.

I think you're absolutely spot on about the play on heart/hart. Well done! Nice to get some more Shakespeare in there, too. :-D

Thank you for your input!

[kattale]

What an incredible resource you have created here. I'm in awe.

[merlocmod]

Thank you so much, hon! {{{hugs}}}

[merlocmod]

Thank you, my sweet! I'm glad you enjoyed this. ♥

I'm glad you also enjoy the Sorcerer's Apprentice film. We thought it was a terrific romp! :-)

[stagbeetle]

Thank you for all your hard work! I didn't know the Edwin Muir poem, and I'd been wondering about "the diamond of the day".

The Hunter's Heart strikes me as a very Ovidian episode, with the transformation of Gwen. I'm thinking particularly of Actaeon, who sees the goddess Diana bathing when he's out hunting, and is turned into a stag and hunted by his own hounds. There are lots of sources for that myth, but Ovid's Metamorphoses is the best known.

[merlocmod]

Thank you so much, hon! I'm glad you enjoyed this.

I hadn't known about the poem, either, until Alice T tweeted about it. :-) Although I suppose I might have come across it eventually, as the source for the Mary Stewart titles... These things are so often about chance!

That's a really good point about The Hunter's Heart, and all the added meaning brought to it by Actaeon's transformation. I think you're onto something there! That's got to be a major reason why they chose a deer rather than a, oh I don't know, wild boar or something! :-) Along with the aesthetics, of course! :-D