Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Classical greek myth in modern times
Classical greek myth in modern times
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Classical greek myth in modern times
"Icarus", written by Edward Field, is based on the classic myth of Daedalus and Icarus but portrays it in a contemporary setting. Field uses specific details, structure, and diction to help him adapt this mythical tale of tragedy to a modern story relevant to today's society.
Although much of the plot and the characters stay the same, the detail used by Field allows the reader to experience the modern adaption of the myth. Reference's to, "Police", "gangs", and "commuter trains" show the reader the setting of the poem as those things were non-existent at the time the Icarus myth is told in. The fact that Icarus "rents" a house and "tends" to his garden gives Icarus a more personal feel which drags him down from the position of fallen hero.v
Betrayed. Ignored. Hurt. Everyone feels this way at some point in his or her life. This is how Icarus was feeling as he fell to his death. In the poem, “Icarus’ Diatribe,” Aaron Pastula writes the point of view as first person to show how Icarus is personally feeling.
Without the use of stereotypical behaviours or even language is known universally, the naming of certain places in, but not really known to, Australia in ‘Drifters’ and ‘Reverie of a Swimmer’ convoluted with the overall message of the poems. The story of ‘Drifters’ looks at a family that moves around so much, that they feel as though they don’t belong. By utilising metaphors of planting in a ‘“vegetable-patch”, Dawe is referring to the family making roots, or settling down somewhere, which the audience assumes doesn’t occur, as the “green tomatoes are picked by off the vine”. The idea of feeling secure and settling down can be applied to any country and isn’t a stereotypical Australian behaviour - unless it is, in fact, referring to the continental
Kim Addonizio’s “First Poem for You” portrays a speaker who contemplates the state of their romantic relationship though reflections of their partner’s tattoos. Addressing their partner, the speaker ambivalence towards the merits of the relationship, the speaker unhappily remains with their partner. Through the usage of contrasting visual and kinesthetic imagery, the speaker revels the reasons of their inability to embrace the relationship and showcases the extent of their paralysis. Exploring this theme, the poem discusses how inner conflicts can be powerful paralyzers.
In his poem, “Prometheus,” Emery George’s speaker closely aligns himself with the main character to describe his theft of fire and its effects on the story of humankind. Even though the narrator speaks in third person, he knows Prometheus’s thoughts and is very in-tune with his experience suggesting that perhaps Prometheus is actually the speaker. His conversational and easy to understand voice goes from cheeky in the first stanza to serious in the second as the horrific consequences of Prometheus’s actions, the bombing of two cities, become apparent. George’s use of enjambment, punctuation, and diction creates continuity throughout the poem in order to highlight the interconnectedness of all things and ultimately pose questions about inevitability and fate.
In Drea Knufken’s essay entitled “Help, We’re Drowning!: Please Pay Attention to Our Disaster,” the horrific Colorado flood is experienced and the reactions of worldly citizens are examined (510-512). The author’s tone for this formal essay seems to be quite reflective, shifting to a tone of frustration and even disappointment. Knufken has a reflective tone especially during the first few paragraphs of the essay. According to Drea Knufken, a freelance writer, ghostwriter and editor, “when many of my out-of-town friends, family and colleagues reacted to the flood with a torrent of indifference, I realized something. As a society, we’ve acquired an immunity to crisis. We scan through headlines without understanding how stories impact people,
Icarus flew too high and got too close to the sun. The heat from the sun melted the wax on the wings, making him fall from the sky. Many people were around where he fell, but they went on about their business and cared nothing about him drowning. There was a man plowing his field, a man fishing, and a man gathering his sheep and they just kept going, not even paying attention to Icarus
The fall of Icarus often comes as a cautionary tale about pride and ambition. However, W. H. Auden and William Carlos Williams took inspiration from Brueghel’s The Fall of Icarus in their respective poems Musee des Beaux Arts and Landscape with the Fall of Icarus to tell a new tale. The poems use imagery, form, repetition, and alliteration to convey the apathy of the world in the face of personal tragedy.
The meaning behind the myth of Icarus is universal, but due to the wild and ancient nature of the myth, it can be hard to relate to. The way the Fields places the myth in a contemporary setting through the use of point of view, truly modern diction, and ubiquitous imagery makes the meaning of the poem more relatable to a modern audience. This poem shows how universal the aspiration for greatness is while portraying the crushing effect of the fall from its
The death camp was a terrible place where people where killed. Hitler is who created the death camp for Jews. The death camp was used for extermination on Jews. This occurred on 1939 – 1945. The death camps were in the country of Europe. Hitler did all this because he didn’t like Jews and the religions. The book Night is a autobiography written by Elie Wiesel. The poem called First they came for the communist written by Martin Neimoller is a autobiography.
'The Icarus Girl' is the novel by Helen Oyeyemi. It is a story of a little girl 'Jessamy Harrison' also called as 'Jess'. She is a shy girl. She loves reading books. She spends most of the time alone writing haikus. Sometimes she had a panic attacks also. She is sensitive, possessed and have powerful imagination. She was very alone because there is nobody of her age. Throughout the novel she read many books, fairy tales, novels, poetry, and plays. So, here I pick a poem 'Kubla Khan' by Samuel Taylor Coleridge which were read by Jess in the novel. She loved that poem as mentioned in the novel. I choose this poem because I think it was very similar to the character mentioned by Helen Oyeyemi 'Jess'. I also think it influences Jessamy's character. ‘Kubla Khan’ is one of the best-known poem of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This poem details of named Kubla Khan in the foreign land of Xanadu. Similarly, in the novel Helen describes about her main character 'Jess', which was going to Nigeria, which was also a foreign land for her. Nigeria is the different world for her. In this poem, poet describes the familiar themes of the powers and complexities of nature, explores the fantastical creations of the imagination. Similarly, in the novel Jess had also a powerful imagination. In the first stanza, poet describes an exotic garden, where the trees, gardens, hills, and river, together present the beautiful nature. The poet carefully observes his surroundings. Xanadu is described more romantically in the second stanza. The poet describes his own vision and power of imagination that comes only from a successful poet. 'Kubla Khan' describes in two parts. The first, describes Xanadu as if poet is actually there, experiencing the place. The poem start...
Robert Creeley, a famous American poet, lived from 1926 to 2005. Creeley was normally associated as a Black Mountain poet because that is where he taught, and spent most of his career. Throughout his life, Creeley wrote many different pieces of poetry. Four great poems by Robert Creeley are, “For Love”, “Oh No”, “The Mirror”, and “The Rain”. The poem “For Love”,was written by Creeley for his wife. In this poem Creeley explains, the love someone has for another person, and how complicated it is making his life because the person doesn’t know how to explain their love. “Oh No” is a poem that is literally about a selfish person who ended up in hell, but this poem has a deeper meaning. Part
Some people are born into this world without as many chances to get a better position in life. This can affect the people born into a lower class for the entirety of their life. In the poem “Saturday’s Child,” Countee Cullen uses imagery, personification, and similes to suggest the differences between people that are born into poverty and those that are born into an upper class part of society. Throughout this poem Cullen speaks about how the different social classes affect people; he does this with a pessimistic tone throughout the entirety of the poem.
The poem “Always Something More Beautiful” by Stephen Dunn is certainly about running a race, but the speaker is also arguing that pursuing something beautiful can help guide us through life. Through the title, we can see that we should constantly look for more beautiful things in life. The poem begins with the speaker describing his experience before a race. He uses words like “best” and “love.” The tone is extremely enthusiastic. In the first line, he talks about coming to the starting place. This can be a metaphor for beginning our lifelong journey. The speaker also implies that we need to approach it with a positive attitude. In the next few lines, the speaker indicates being tested in excellence
“The Spring and the Fall” is written by Edna St. Vincent Millay. The poem is about two people, the poet and her significant other that she once had love for. The poem integrates the use of spring and fall to show how the poet stresses her relationship. Of course it starts off briefly by having a happy beginning of love, but the relationship soon took a shift for the worst, and there was foreshadow that there would be an unhappy ending. “I walked the road beside my dear. / The trees were black where the bark was wet” (2-3). After the seasons changed, the poet begins to explain why the relationship was dying, and all of the bad things she endured during the relationship. So, to what extend did the poet’s heart become broken, and did she ever
‘The Falling Soldier’ is one of many poems by Duffy which deals with the subject of human mortality. Duffy expresses what could have been over a harsh reality; this is characteristic of her as also seen in ‘Last Post’ and ‘Passing Bells’ which both seem to be largely influenced by poet peer Wilfred Owen’s personal experiences of war. In the ‘The Falling Soldier’ Duffy paradoxically captures the essence of Robert Capa’s famous photograph of a man falling after being shot during the Spanish Civil War (1936). She employs the form of an impersonal narrative voice, using second person to question the possibilities, to explore the tragic and cyclical nature of war. The futile reality of war contrasts to her central theme in ‘The Bees’ anthology of bees symbolising the grace left in humanity.