Icarus Myth and Allusion

From Mrs. Warren:

In this learning segment I have brought together texts that all have the Icarus myth in common. The texts include the original Icarus myth from Ovid’s Metamorphoses , Pieter Brueghel's oil on canvas titled The Fall of Icarus, W. H. Auden's poem “Musee des Beaux Arts,” and William Carlos Williams' "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" William Carlos Williams.

In this segment we will examine the literary idea of hubris, we will look at how the Icarus myth is alluded to in multiple texts across time, and how artists use allusions to create meaning in a new text.

Icarus Myth Summary

The Fall of Icarus is a Greek myth that has been the basis for countless paintings, novels, plays, and other works of art. In the story, the inventor Daedalus creates wings in his workshop and gives them to his son, Icarus. The wings come with a warning: don’t fly too close to the sun, or the wax will melt and the wings will come apart. Unfortunately, Icarus is full of hubristic ambition, and he wants to fly as high as he can. Due to this hubris, Daedalus’s warning comes true: the wings melt in the sun’s heat, and Icarus plummets into the sea.

What is Hubris?

Hubris (pronounced HEW-bris) means “excessive pride” or “overconfidence. It’s when somebody gets so confident that they start to believe they’re invincible. As a result, they make foolish decisions that ultimately bring about their defeat.

The word comes from Greek literature, where it refers to a defiant or arrogant attitude toward the gods. The gods, of course, will not stand for this sort of behavior and always punish those who are guilty of hubris, usually with death. Our concept of “playing God” is borrowed from Greek notions of hubris.

What is a hubris in literature?

Hubris, or pride, is one of the most common tragic flaws for a hero or heroine. Many literary heroes have caused or nearly caused their own destruction because of their excessive pride.

Examples and Explanation of Hubris

Example 1

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is a classic story about the hubris of playing God. In the novel, Dr. Victor Frankenstein decides to create sentient life in his laboratory, a task that would put him on a par with the other great creator of life – God. Frankenstein’s creation, however, proves impossible to control and becomes a curse on its creator.

Example 2

Hubris occurs in real life as well as in literature. Hitler, for example, was notoriously overconfident in his approach to waging war, and his hubris arguably cost him the war – and his life. For most of World War II, Hitler wisely kept peace with the Soviet Union in the east, even as he waged a brutal campaign against the Allies in the west. Everything was going so well that Hitler got overconfident and decided to attack the Soviets, opening up a second front in the war where millions of German soldiers would die. This rash decision significantly weakened the Nazi army, ultimately leading to an Allied victory.

Example 3

The Titanic is often thought of as another real-world example of hubris. Advertisements for the ship described it as “practically unsinkable,” and this may have led to overconfidence on the part of its captain. Many people believe that the ship was steered heedlessly, and that the crew were not careful enough about the icebergs floating near them. In addition, the ship was designed without enough lifeboat space, so many of its passengers were doomed to drown when it sank.

Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Book VIII,

DAEDALUS AND ICARUS

Meanwhile Daedalus, hating Crete, and his long exile, and filled with a desire to stand on his native soil, was imprisoned by the waves. ‘He may thwart our escape by land or sea’ he said ‘but the sky is surely open to us: we will go that way: Minos rules everything but he does not rule the heavens’. So saying he applied his thought to new invention and altered the natural order of things. He laid down lines of feathers, beginning with the smallest, following the shorter with longer ones, so that you might think they had grown like that, on a slant. In that way, long ago, the rustic pan-pipes were graduated, with lengthening reeds. Then he fastened them together with thread at the middle, and bees’-wax at the base, and, when he had arranged them, he flexed each one into a gentle curve, so that they imitated real bird’s wings. His son, Icarus, stood next to him, and, not realizing that he was handling things that would endanger him, caught laughingly at the down that blew in the passing breeze, and softened the yellow bees’-wax with his thumb, and, in his play, hindered his father’s marvelous work.

When he had put the last touches to what he had begun, the artificer balanced his own body between the two wings and hovered in the moving air. He instructed the boy as well, saying ‘Let me warn you, Icarus, to take the middle way, in case the moisture weighs down your wings, if you fly too low, or if you go too high, the sun scorches them. Travel between the extremes. And I order you not to aim towards Bootes, the Herdsman, or Helice, the Great Bear, or towards the drawn sword of Orion: take the course I show you!’ At the same time as he laid down the rules of flight, he fitted the newly created wings on the boy’s shoulders. While he worked and issued his warnings the ageing man’s cheeks were wet with tears: the father’s hands trembled.

He gave a never to be repeated kiss to his son, and lifting upwards on his wings, flew ahead, anxious for his companion, like a bird, leading her fledglings out of a nest above, into the empty air. He urged the boy to follow, and showed him the dangerous art of flying, moving his own wings, and then looking back at his son. Some angler catching fish with a quivering rod, or a shepherd leaning on his crook, or a ploughman resting on the handles of his plough, saw them, perhaps, and stood there amazed, believing them to be gods able to travel the sky.

And now Samos, sacred to Juno, lay ahead to the left (Delos and Paros were behind them), Lebinthos, and Calymne, rich in honey, to the right, when the boy began to delight in his daring flight, and abandoning his guide, drawn by desire for the heavens, soared higher. His nearness to the devouring sun softened the fragrant wax that held the wings: and the wax melted: he flailed with bare arms, but losing his oar-like wings, could not ride the air. Even as his mouth was crying his father’s name, it vanished into the dark blue sea, the Icarian Sea, called after him. The unhappy father, now no longer a father, shouted ‘Icarus, Icarus where are you? Which way should I be looking, to see you?’ ‘Icarus’ he called again. Then he caught sight of the feathers on the waves, and cursed his inventions. He laid the body to rest, in a tomb, and the island was named Icaria after his buried child.

From: http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph8.htm#482327661

"Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" by William Carlos Williams

(Published in 1960)

According to Brueghel

when Icarus fell

it was spring

a farmer was ploughing

his field

the whole pageantry

of the year was

awake tingling

with itself

sweating in the sun

that melted

the wings' wax

unsignificantly

off the coast

there was

a splash quite unnoticed

this was

Icarus drowning

Learning Activity: Poetry Analysis: “Musee des Beaux Arts”

DEFINE:

Tone:

Diction:

Denotation:

Connotation:

Rhythm:

Line:

Stanza:

Speaker:

Imagery:

Allusion:

Discussion

• What is the poet alluding to in the second stanza? Be specific.

• What is the theme/message of the poem? *Include how the allusion develops the theme.

• What imagery helps develop a frustrated and angry tone in the first stanza. *Underline and explain two different examples.

PROMPT: What is the tone in W. H. Auden’s poem “Musee des Beaux Arts”? Use the following in your answer: speaker, stanza, line, connotation, word choice/diction, rhythm, imagery, and allusion.