Landscape with the Fall of Icarus - Essay Example

Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus and Musee Des Beaux Arts William Carlos Williams's and W.H Auden's literature pieces try much to explain the mysteries of the past world people lived in and also serve as a constant reminder as memoirs of the current cohort. The two relate in their approach to prose as Pieter Brueghel painting in ‘Landscape with Fall of Icarus’ (Burt 68). At this point Auden takes it in his writing to bring the tragedy of humankind and its position by stressing the two crucial life stages, birth, and death. He has achieved much in his poem ‘Musee des Beaux Arts’ not just the collection of long verses, rhythms, and on popular phrases but also he brings in this reality of suffering within the specific examples of a boy who falls into the sea. As for Williams’ poem, it exposes the Greek tragedy of Icarus. The painting by Pieter Brueghel takes after the tragic ending of Icarus and carelessness and bliss ignorance of the populous witnessing the sad events. The son of Daedalus had ignored the plea of his father as they lived with the experience of being in exile (Baines and Kunkel 83). The two are wearing wings made out of wax and feathers. The plunge and drowning of Icarus into the sea goes against his father’s advice not to fly too close to the sea. Therefore, the two artists are modernist poets as even W. H. Auden extends his subjects as seen through the painting of Brueghel. As two distinct ekphrastic poems responding to the same painting, the poems converge their concerns at this level. The poets use myth to capture the situations, the experiences, and circumstances of human kind. The reference to Icarus and Daedalus through Peter Brueghel’s painting of their fall from heaven (Ziolkowski, and the moderns 48). Carlos and Auden each composed a poem based on Brueghel’s paintings. As noted earlier, their references to the painting denote a deep and meaningful message through the diction, connotation, and denotations. All these features are present in the poems as they help a reader to connect with the emotions and tragedies that Brueghel’s painting portrays. At a scrutiny of the painting, which the two touch upon, one notices some trickery as one is drawn to the left. Brueghel’s painting seems to inspire the two to depict the archetypal peasant sceneries of the sixteenth scenery Belgium. The point of focus for the two poets is the forefront farmer, plowing his field his field on a rocky hillside as this extends to the fisherman and shepherd at further background (Burt 102). This is a psychological approach on the side of the painter to the readers. Therefore, it is an illustration of individual human suffering, which insinuates apathy on the side of the reader. They both combine their verses to highlight the images of suffering and tragedy, for example with the images of the main character, who is obviously struggling to stay alive. Again, the two poems are a replica of two souls chanting the modern experience in the city. Williams and Auden join address the issue of turning away from other people’s failures and suffering as seen through the reality of Peter Brueghel’s Icarus painting. The two poems are different both from the writer’s perspective and from style of writing. William Carlos Williams’ poem ‘Landscape with the Fall of Icarus’ gifts the reader with a simple sketch that helps to describe the subject of Peter Brueghel’s painting, which carries the same title (Ziolkowski, and the moderns 75). In his style, William’s poem consists of three- line free verse word grouping. This is a unique way that Williams uses to depict human experience, as these verses are neither stanzas or verse paragraphs. In Brueghel’s painting, William portrays the season as spring when Icarus fell into the sea. There is also a farmer working in the adjacent field as the hot sun above led to the melting of Icarus wax. No one notices even though there is a splash. William poem highlights the ignorance people have. The drowning of Icarus has been such a significant event, yet it is the same thing, as crucial as it may seem, that people portray as significant (Burt 97). The event was insignificant and unnoticed and this highlights the human tendency to fail to focus on other people’s tragedies and suffering. This is what triggers William’s literary prowess. In W. H. Auden’s ‘Musee des Beaux Arts’, through his persona, the poet brings out more elaborate analysis than William does in his brief poem. His style is different, with the entire poem composed of two stanzas each carrying more than seven verses in content. Just like William’s poem, Auden endeavors to focus on the insignificance of events away from those involved but what cut him away from William is his lengthy elaborations of the phenomenon. For example, in the two-verse poem, Auden offers many details about the old masters understanding of human nature (Baines and Kunkel 65). When he points out in one of the verses that they well understood the human position and how it takes place as someone was eating and having the window opened or just having a walk dully along. For instance, while older people consider the childbirth as a major event, a little growing child skating on a pond does not care about the event. This is the point where he meets Brueghel’s assertions in his painting as the farmer may have heard the splash of Icarus and subsequent droning yet to him that is not important. Through the tale of the ‘Old Masters, Auden reminds readers about human perception of who have the presence of mind to pay attention and those who have no concern for all (Ziolkowski, and the moderns 85). This is an extension of human capacity to comprehend situations, pointing out the ignorance of people to fellow men suffering. The central theme in this poem by Auden is love, politics, and citizenship. His poem is considered as versatile and inventive and like much of his poems; it harbors moral issue, and evidence of a strong political, social, and psychological context. In this poem, the Auden free verse poem describes the suffering and the dreadful martyrdom. He picks his ideas from a time when WWII was imminent. The war was not on set but the poems highlight the rumblings, which were in the background. Auden comes out as a poet who through his contemplative political works has given completely tempestuous socio-political landscape of Europe in ‘Musee des Beaux Arts’ (Baines and Kunkel 70). The contrast of the events taking place in Brueghel’s painting is what prompts Auden’s reaction. He uses this to magnify how deep the suffering in most of European parts was like. This mirrors the nature of the war that ravaged aimlessly while on the other side, fellow citizens went about their mundane lives. Therefore, in his political inclinations, Auden has out-won William in that his poem is laden with symbolism of Christianity thus referring to the notion of creation and destruction (Ziolkowski, and the moderns 90). At this point, Auden insinuates that there could be hope and dream as the effects of war consumed everything. He gets this from the experiences he got from participating in the war. He is thus aware of its fruitlessness nature and painfully foretells that even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course. This is echoed in his heavy use of warfare sentiments about the state of war and its devastating impact. This dismal tone takes the poem all over. The same narration on his view of the political situation of not bothering moves on to the description of the woeful pair of legs fast disappearing into the sea in the second stanza (Ziolkowski, and the moderns 83). The tragedy of Icarus heightens through the fact that his unfortunate escapade does illicit any help that in some way might have altered the fatal outcome. This is the general picture of the political turmoil in larger Europe. People suffered but little bother come from those who even might have seen or had been witnessing. At this point, one may suggest that Auden uses the symbol of Christ as he was crucified with no one coming to his rescue (Baines and Kunkel 92). Unlike the sketch analysis of Williams on human circumstances, Auden has craftily woven his words to highlight how the effect of such a significant disaster comes as so little in the eyes of those who are not at all in trouble. As the sun seems to shine, exposing the legs of drowning Icarus yet nearby there was an expensive and delicate ship, which just chose to ignore as it sailed in serenity as though it was normal sea tranquility. In conclusion, both Auden and William have helped to lay the impersonal characteristics of life and nature in their poems. The significance of life and death remains and stands diluted as the two poems expose the sad reality song of indifference towards a sorry event as in the painting of Brueghel’s picture (Burt 78). Just as Austen helps to capture the reflection of his own views on the apathy of war and life, which often confront one another, William on the other part helps to consolidate a similar impersonal and disdainful manner of human nature of seeing it okay to ignore even the noise and chatter and background in life. Work cited Malan, Robin. New Poetry Works: A Workbook Anthology. Claremont, South Africa: Davidphilip, 2007. Print. Ziolkowski, T. Minos and the moderns: Cretan myth in twentieth-century literature and art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print. Top of Form Baines, L., and Kunkel, A. J. Going bohemian: How to teach writing like you mean it. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 2010. Print. Bottom of Form Burt, S. The forms of youth: Twentieth-century poetry and adolescence. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2007. Print. Read More