Musee Des Arts by W.H. Auden
...ngs for the king’s enemy. Daedalus and Icarus were both kept prisoner and the only way to escape was to fly. Daedalus built wings for himself and Icarus. He made the wings out of wax, or some sort of a wax product. He warned Icarus not to fly too close to the water because the moisture can dampen his wings, and not to fly too close to the sun, because the heat would melt his wings. Icarus forgot his father’s warning and flew high in the sky. His wings melted, and he fell to his death. The author refers to Icarus, because the painting is about the fall of Icarus. However, there is another meaning to it, because in the picture no one is looking at Icarus, no one notices a boy that fell from the sky. Icarus is the child that ‘skated too close to the edge of the forest’ and forgot about the warnings. In the last lines, Auden writes of how amazing a boy is falling from the sky, and the ship continues to sail calmly on. Although something extraordinary happened, people will go on with their daily lives. This poem has irregular stanzas. There are enjambed lines, and it is a free versed, open poem, with discursive language. The poem is not in received form, and it has no rhyme or formal meter. In this poem, the author is the commentator, the announcer, telling a story. The speaker is an interpreter because he interprets the wise ‘Old Master’s’ and how well the understood, and how ‘amazing’ of a sight it must be to see a boy falling from the sky. The meaning of the poem was embedded within, indirectly, and one would have to read the poem a couple of times to understand. I think this poem is a well-written work, because for some reason, it reminds me of World War II. It reminds me ...