Musee des "Fall of Icarus"

Brueghel is an artist of the Renaissance era. Among his most famous paintings is "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus." It is still in display in Musee des Beaux Arts. He has, in his painting, depicted the mythological story of Icarus, who tried to fly away and got too close to the sun and fall to his death. His painting is one that has influenced many artists, whether of art or other disciplines. W.H Auden's and William Carlos Williams' poems "Musee des Beaux Arts" and "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus," respectively describe the beauty of the painting and bring new interpretations of the artwork using the authors' views of the event taking place in the painting.

Quite differently from many of poems I have read in he past, "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus," is an interdisciplinary poem. It takes a painting by Pieter Brueghel and discusses the painting itself. So to be able to fully understand the poem we have to be able to understand the painting itself first. The painting illustrates the mythological story of Icarus trying to escape and fly towards the freedom and ultimately fail. This poem not only explains the painting but it also adds to the ancient myth. Who might have thought of the laboring farmer and sailor who noticed Icarus fall? The poem as a whole depicts the “unsignificant” fall of Icarus from the views to the common people.

According to the Greek myth, Icarus, the son of Dedalus, tried to fly to freedom to escape from the labyrinth he was trapped in. His wings were unfortunately made from wax so as he flew towards the sun, the wings melted and thus Icarus fell to the sea, drowning as he did. William Carlos Williams has taken this myth further, he has developed the imagery and the comprehensiveness of the myth. He not only talks of Icarus’ fall but refers to the farmer, the sea and the sun and how detached and indifferent people are about Icarus’ passing. Related with the context of the poem, the author also has a sense of detachment to the whole issue. This adds to the whole atmosphere of the poem and the sense it provides to the reader. The disinterested tone of the author helps us understand what the he is trying to point out to us by writing this poem.

The physical structure of the poem itself adds to the tone since it has stanzas that are separated from each other. The poem basically is structured that way for the author to be able to group certain events that took place in the painting as Icarus fell through the sky. The words that are used are quite simple vocabulary, and are chosen haphazardly. The author’s usage of “unsignificantly” instead of insignificantly adds voice and also reveals some information about the author’s disposition on the whole issue of Icarus’ fall. The short sentences used by the author also add to the feeling of the poem, since especially in the last stanza the author describes the whole death scene of Icarus in one short and simple sentence. The poem makes us feel as if the author almost has no interest or sympathy for Icarus. But is that true?

The tone of the poem suggests that the author is quite distant to the whole issue of Icarus falling to his death. But when we think about the poem on a deeper level and about why the author decided to write it, we may derive some other views of the author. Why would he bother writing about some painting that does not interest him? I believe he writes this poem because he judges the painting. He mocks the painting as a whole and truly believes that Icarus’ fall was a big issue and that the painting has some major flaws to it. This, I believe, may be the reason that the author decided to write such a poem and that it is not simply because he was trying to describe the painting to us in an disinterested manner.

"Musee Des Beaux Arts" is a poem written by W.H. Auden, and is one that takes an emotional approach to the imagery of the painting, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. The emotional approach is caused by the main idea of the poem consisting of the human’s suffering and how it shall continue no matter how much we try to stop it. It talks about how we try to exclude it from our lives and why we tend to do that. In the second stanza, the poet goes into a little more detail by  giving one specific example of the suffering that is ignored by the people. This example is the example of the fall of Icarus and how people ignore such an important person as he falls to his death. The name of the poem comes from the museum that displays the painting itself.

The tone of the poem is different from Williams’ poem in that it has a more emotional and one that has something to say about the people that have let Icarus fall through the sky. The main point of the poem being about the nature of the humans rather than the painting itself. The first stanza clearly points out that the people tend to ignore the suffering of others and tent to think as if nothing is going on. This point makes up the whole poem and is the main point that differs from  Williams’ poem.

The punctuation in the poem are placed in unusual places in my opinion and therefore they certainly add to the tone of the poem.The form of the poem also adds to the tone since it  divides the poem into two parts, one that talks about humans’ indifference to suffering as a whole and a part that exemplifies this topic. The sentence structure is also different and therefore it gives a more poetic and meaningful tone to the poem.

The tone reveals the writer’s purpose in that it tells us about what he thinks of people’s indifference to suffering. The author being emotional towards people’s sufferings shows that he believes we should be more caring and more willing to help. This tells us about the author’s ideas. This reveals that maybe the author wrote the poem in order inform people of their menace.

The two poems are great contrasts of each other since they both use the same painting to judge totally different two issues. One of these issues, Williams believes, is that Icarus’ fall was no big deal and so nobody saw it as it happened. And on the other hand, Auden says that people should not be so indifferent to the suffering of the others, the poet suggest implicitly that we should be able to see that suffering is a part of our daily lives and that we will sooner or later have to face it.

Again, both poems use that same image to get their ideas to the other side but one of them is solely built on it, whereas the other one is just using the painting as an example illustrate people indifference to others’ suffering in the world and make some references to the innate nature of humans since the dawn of time.

Both of the poems try to explain to themselves as to why nobody in the painting cares about the fall of Icarus. One chooses to talk about the innate nature of the humans and the other tries to talk about the fact that nobody cares because nobody sees this Icarus falling into the sea. The reasons are numerous, Auden believes that this is always so and that people will continue to neglect suffering of other since they do not want to recognize suffering as a part of life. Williams on the other hand has a more intricate reason so that we can only guess to what he means: he might describing the painting or mocking it. Which ever one we choose, these two poems add greater meaning to the painting than it ever had.