Greek mythology had always been an interest of mine. The poem Musee des Beux Arts by W.H Auden and Anne Sexton’s To a Friend Whose Come to Triumph are both based on the myth of Icarus both poet based their poetry on a painting by Pieter Brueghel on The Landscape of The Fall of Icarus. W.H Auden was enamored by Brueghel’s painting that he wrote about it. Anne Sexton’s poem was a poetical response to William Butler Yeats poem’s To a Friend Whose Work Has Come to Nothing
Both Auden and Sexton’s poems are based on life. Audens’s Poem leans more about the indifference of others sufferings in which offers a pragmatic vision of the ways innocence and passivity is one and the same. Sexton’s poem leans more on seizing the day, taking chances, and living in the moment. The outcome of the poems is similar but the message that both poet tries to convey are different.
Auden used simplistic and descriptive languages as imagery, for example on line 4 In Auden’s poem, “While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;” he layered multiple occurrences on top of another, creating portraits of everyday life. The “Old Masters” that he had eluded in the second line of the poem is the “Old Masters” of the art world. The rest of the poem is in reference to Pieter Brueghel’s painting “The landscape with the fall of Icarus”. Its allusion comforts and gives a specific image to the readers. This poem was written in free verse with no metrical pattern. The reference to “Old Masters” and museums and old paintings creates a tension with the simple language and mundane qualities of Auden's form. The disparity between the two is an intentional move, one intended to demonstrate how even simple subjects and language can be pa...
... middle of paper ...
... First, she instructs the reader to "Consider Icarus"(1). Next, she commands with an exclamation to, "Think of the difference it made!"(4) and to "Admire his wings!" From this diction, we find she is quite earnest in her mindset, and eager for the reader to understand her point of view. Finally, when she says, "Who cares...""(12) shows that Icarus' experience was, to Anne Sexton, completely worth the price that he paid.
While Anne Sexton obviously thought Icarus was admirable for his risk-taking, I think this opinion is atypical. After all, the author intended this to be a lesson; Icarus was the one who disobeyed his father. He deserved to drown; he had been informed of the consequences before. The flight was a method of escape, not a pleasure trip. I think most people, contrary to Anne Sexton's point of view, would side against Icarus and his defiant ways.
Ovid, Pieter Brueghel and W. H. Auden have (inadvertently) created a lineage convenient to these demands. In Ovid's myth "Concerning the Fall of Icarus" from Metamorphoses[i], he created a character that has become an icon, several millennia later. Pieter Brueghel adopted the icon in the sixteenth century for his painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, which then received famous treatment in the twentieth century by W. H. Auden in his poem "Musée Des Beaux Arts." These three works provide a beautiful, laboratory-quality arena in which to apply various deconstructive ideas: Jacques Derrida's theories of translation and the "dangerous supplement" and Roland Barthes' conception of the myth as language. However, such an inheritance necessarily extends to include the critical work that draws it together.
The timeline carries on chronologically, the intense imagery exaggerated to allow the poem to mimic childlike mannerisms. This, subjectively, lets the reader experience the adventure through the young speaker’s eyes. The personification of “sunset”, (5) “shutters”, (8) “shadows”, (19) and “lamplights” (10) makes the world appear alive and allows nothing to be a passing detail, very akin to a child’s imagination. The sunset, alive as it may seem, ordinarily depicts a euphemism for death, similar to the image of the “shutters closing like the eyelids”
I chose to start this paper by quoting an entire poem of Anne Sexton's. Why? Because no one told the story of Anne Sexton's life as often or as well as Anne Sexton herself. Over and over she wrote, recounted, and recast her struggles with madness, her love affairs, her joys and griefs in parenting, and her religious quests. For example, "Rowing" touches upon the need for Anne to tell stories about herself, her longing for connection with others, her mental problems, and her searching for God - one could not ask for a better introduction to the world of Anne Sexton.
Both poems inspire their reader to look at their own life. In addition, they treat the reader to a full serving of historic literature that not only entertains, but also teaches valuable lesson in the form of morals and principles.
Both poems are set in the past, and both fathers are manual labourers, which the poets admired as a child. Both poems indicate intense change in their fathers lives, that affected the poet in a drastic way. Role reversal between father and son is evident, and a change of emotion is present. These are some of the re-occurring themes in both poems. Both poems in effect deal with the loss of a loved one; whether it be physically or mentally.
W.H. Auden and Pieter Bruegel were both keen observers of the ordinary. In Bruegel’s painting “The Fall of Icarus”, he is able to look past the tragedy of the death of Icarus and focus on the simple scene surrounding the event. Auden’s poem, “Musee des Beaux Arts”, has the same qualities: it glazes over the nature of tragedy, and chooses to instead examine the fact that life goes on while disaster occurs. Arthur F. Kinney highlights this idea of calm in the face of tragedy in a critical essay entitled “Auden, Bruegel, and Musee des Beaux Arts”. Kinney explores Auden’s inspiration for the theme of the poem. The theme, Kinney explains, is not merely generated by “The Fall of Icarus”, but also two other Bruegel pieces. “The Numbering at Bethlehem” portays Joseph and Mary arriving at Bethlehem, while “The Massacre of the Innocents” shows a torturer and his horse in a town square. Both pieces convey the same main theme as “Musee des Beaux Arts”: the complex nature of a substantial event, contrasted with the simplicity of every day life. Each of the paintings reflects on human nature, in the context of apathy amidst tragedy. In his critical article “Auden, Bruegel, and Musee des Beaux Arts” Kinney asserts that “the same statement [is] made by two art forms”, and that Bruegel’s painting and the poem it inspired, “Musee des Beaux Arts”, “juxtapose the unique and the commonplace.”
Often, the reader cannot help but feel a bit disheartened after reading a collection of Anne Sexton’s poems. Sexton herself was disheartened with the prospect of life, killing herself at the age of 45 after years in and out of mental facilities. Her poems certainly take cynicism to an extreme, but they remain the type of extreme valuable to the literary canon. Her poetry leaves the reader questioning the world around him, now able to see stories and past experiences in a new light. And although in the case of Sexton this light may be a shadow, the new depth it adds highlights to us that which we hold truly pure.
The third decade of the twentieth century brought on more explicit writers than ever before, but none were as expressive as Anne Sexton. Her style of writing, her works, the image that she created, and the crazy life that she led are all prime examples of this. Known as one of the most “confessional” poets of her time, Anne Sexton was also one of the most criticized. She was known to use images of incest, adultery, and madness to reveal the depths of her deeply troubled life, which often brought on much controversy. Despite this, Anne went on to win many awards and go down as one of the best poets of all time.
In John Updike’s poem “The Great Scarf of Birds”, he uses diction and figurative speech to depict the beautiful autumn season to show how inspiring and uplifting nature is to man. Updike chooses autumn as the season to set his story in because generally, it is the season that has the most vivid vibrant colors in nature such as the ripe apples which are described as “red fish in the nets (limbs)”. (Line 3) Updike paints the picture of the beauty of nature with the simile about the apples to show the reader what a powerful effect nature has on man. Updike goes on to discuss the elm trees that were “swaying in the sky” (Line 7) and the “dramatic straggling v’s” of geese. Updike uses these descriptive portrayals of na...
Painted by Vincent Van Gogh during a final burst of activity in Auvers before his suicide in July, Houses at Auvers features many of the characteristic elements typical of Van Gogh; the experimentation with color, texture, and thick brush strokes. This painting depicts the view and landscape in early summer, highlighting the patchwork of houses and the rolling greenery. Van Gogh’s unique, thick brush strokes lead the eyes through the painting, create texture and patterns and also highlight and shadow objects in the early summer sun, while his experimentation with color creates contrast and a bright, vibrant image.
During the 18th century, two great companions, William Wordsworth, collaborated together to create Lyrical Ballad, one of the greatest works of the Romantic period. The two major poems of Lyrical Ballad are Wordsworth’s “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” and Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight.” Even though these two poems contain different experiences of the two speakers, upon close reading of these poems, the similarities are found in their use of language, the tone, the use of illustrative imagery to fascinate the reader’s visual sense and the message to their loved ones. The speaker of “Lines Composed of a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey” is Wordsworth himself. He represents Romanticism’s spiritual view of nature.
This poem is a firsthand account of how Anne Bradstreet was feeling when she experienced the loss of her granddaughter, Elizabeth. Although Bradstreet's attitude on Elizabeth's death seems to reflect her belief in God's plan, the diction suggests otherwise.
Kasdano, Michelle. "Poetry: The Legacy of Anne Sexton." Helium (2007). Web. 31 Aug 2011. .
Kumin, Maxine. Foreword. The Complete Poems by Anne Sexton. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999. xix.
Both poems where written in the Anglo-Saxton era in Old English and later translated into English. As well as both poems being written in the same time period, they are both elegiac poems, meaning they are poignant and mournful.