Icarus is a character in Grecian myth. Harmonizing to the myth he and his male parent fly with wings that his male parent made out of wax and plumes. They are seeking to get away from a average male monarch. Icarus’ male parent warns him non to wing to shut to the Sun or the wax would run. destroying his wings. Icarus is caught up in the glorification of his flight and does non mind his male parents warning. His wings fall apart and he plummets to the sea and drowns. The myth of Icarus appears to be reasonably consecutive forward. and yet three poets write verse forms showing three different positions utilizing specific techniques. The three poets and their verse forms are Edward Field’s “Icarus. ” William Carlos Williams’ “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. ” and Muriel Rukeyser’s “Waiting for Icarus. ”
In Field’s verse form. he chooses to alter the stoping and “decry the impact of modern society upon individuals” ( Roberts 928 ) . In his verse form. Icarus does non submerge. he “had swum off coming at last to the metropolis where he rented a house and tended the garden” ( Field 8 and 9 ) . This is a really common being for a adult male who had one time soared so high. This verse form is about the outlooks people have and the world they get. Icarus is a “hero who goes on life long after the minute of glorification. and is puzzled. bored. and unhappy with the dowdiness of the uneventful life” that he now leads ( Roberts 354 ) . No 1 has any thought who Icarus is. or of the great act he one time performed. The informants did non care. Field writes. they “ran off to a pack war” ( 5 ) . His neighbours are all excessively busy with their ain lives to care about who Icarus truly is. Edwards is connoting that life merely goes on. Icarus. holding achieved a minute of illustriousness. has been populating a dull and normal life “and wishes he had drowned” ( Field 30 ) .
The point that life goes on is something that Field’s verse form has in common with Williams’ . Williams besides expresses that life goes on. but he uses Brueghal’s painting to make it. Williams is able to “recreate the picture in verbal images” ( Roberts 357 ) . Through his verbal images he describes “a husbandman was plowing his field” and says “insignificantly off the seashore there was a splash quite unnoticed” ( Williams 4. 19 and 20 ) . The fact that the husbandman does non detect the splash of Icarus is Williams’ manner of demoing that. no affair what occurs. life merely goes on. Unlike Field. Williams does non utilize any punctuation. The deficiency of punctuation is “to indicate an absence of expressive inflexion. ” which further proves the insignificance of Icarus’ autumn to the society around him ( Cole 151 ) .
Rukeyser puts a wholly different spin on the myth. She shows that even though life goes on. the determinations that people make do impact those around them. She does this by composing from “the point of position of [ Icarus’ ] girlfriend” ( Roberts 354 ) . Like Williams. Rukeyser uses the deficiency punctuation as a tool in her verse form. She merely uses punctuation in the last stanza. The deficiency of punctuation and the “methodical repetition” of phrases like “he said” and “I remember” are used to demo how adult females tend to babble on and on ( Roberts 355 and Rukeyser 1 and 12 ) . Possibly that is why Rukeyser writes about her friends stating “he merely wanted to acquire off from” her ( 15 ) . This verse form is more about the autumn of a love affair. while the first two are about the undistinguished autumn of a hero.
Grecian mythology is one medium. where people typically come to their ain decisions. The three poets discussed supra are non different in that regard. They have taken the same myth and interjected their ain thoughts and techniques to make different angles. in which to show themselves.
