impresns

Allusion, Artistry, and the Fall of Icarus

Impressions of the Legend of Icarus

Here you reflect informally on the legend of Icarus. Follow the directions for each writing space. You can use these notes as the basis for more formal writing later. Follow the directions under the first comment box for copying your writing to a word processor or use the Double Window or Writing Space method described on the Help page. Save the word processor file you create as legdnote (for legend notes). Give each section a heading to remind you which writing space you were responding to.

Writing Your Impressions of the Legend of Icarus

Icarus: Write a few sentences as a character sketch of Icarus based on your reading of the legend. Don't be concerned about format or mechanics--just freewrite your thoughts about the topic.

Without closing your Web browser, open a word processor new document. Copy and paste your Icarus sketch into a document and save it as legdnote (for legend notes) but do not close the document since you will be adding to it. Give this writing a heading, Icarus. You can toggle back and forth between your Web browser and your word processor (use ALT-TAB in Windows 3.0+) or set up a double window as described on the Help page. Save the legdnote file.

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Contrasts: Ovid reports that "Some fisher, perhaps, plying his quivering rod, some shepherd leaning on his staff, or a peasant bent over his plow handle caught sight of them as they flew past and stood stock still in astonishment, believing these creatures who could fly through the air must be gods"" (Metamorphosis 8). In contrast, Auden writes:

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure....

Write a short explanation of the difference in people's attitudes toward the sight of a flying child and a drowning child as portrayed in the legend according to Ovid in contrast with their attitudes depicted in the poem and painting. You might want to look again at the poem and at the painting and use your browser BACK button or navigation bar to return to this page.

Copy and paste your questions about the poem into your document. Give this section a heading, Contrasts. Save the legdnote file.

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Having reflected on the poem, viewed the painting, and read the legend, you are familiar with two works of art that include allusions to the legend of Icarus. The next Web explains the concept of allusion and some of the other allusions in Auden's poem..