The Roman poet Ovid famously recorded the story of Daedalus and Icarus in his Metamorphoses, a collection of myths and legends that describe the transformations of various beings and phenomena. In his honour, the sea near Icaria, where his body was washed ashore, was called the Icarian Sea. Daedalus warn Icarus not to fly too close to the sun or too low to the sea, but Icarus was overcome by excitement and flew higher and higher until the wax melted and his wings fell apart. Daedalus made wings of feathers and wax to escape from the island for himself and his son. King Minos of Crete imprisoned Daedalus and Icarus in the Labyrinth, a maze-like structure that housed the Minotaur, a monstrous creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Daedalus was a skillful architect and craftsman, while Icarus was his only child. Accessed April 10 2015.Daedalus and Icarus were father and son in Greek mythology. Rather than viewing those central to tragedy as victims, it gives them the power to embrace their disaster and laugh even as they fall.įiona. “Untitled.” We Can Rewrite Icarus. In doing this, the poem forces us to re-examine our conceptions of the tale and view it in a different light, and questions our portrayal of tragedy. Taking the Greek myth of the fall of Icarus, this poem takes a pivotal moment in the familiar tragedy and twists it into something strange and unfamiliar. In essence, this poem seeks to capture a single moment in a catastrophic sequence of events. These lines provide commentary, pushing the poem beyond a simple description of Icarus’s fall to a broader painting of tragedy as a whole. Yet parts of the poem seem more reserved: “(There is a bitter triumph / in crashing when you should be / soaring.)” (7-9) and “(There is a certain beauty / in setting the world on fire / and watching from the centre / of the flames.)” (21-24) are couched in parentheses, setting them off from the rest of the poem as observations. Written in free verse, the poem has no rhyme or structure, merely a pouring out of emotion in quick, short lines that capture the urgency of the moment. Just as Icarus is breaking free from our conceptions of him, so too does the poem break from our ideas about poetry. This snapshot of his fall brings the moment alive as both tragic and exquisitely exhilarating, rather than merely one or the other. Still, there is beauty alongside it: “Feathers floated like prayers” (13) and “The sun painted everything / in shades of gold” (19-20). Despite his laughter, the poem makes it clear that he is still in the midst of disaster-“wax scorched his skin” (10) and “Death breathed burning kisses / against his shoulders” (16-17). Of course, there is nothing Icarus can do to avoid his fate. The poem gives him central power, no longer in a helpless downward spiral. Unlike the passive Icarus who can do nothing but fall screaming to his death, this Icarus embraces his fate with wild abandon. Yet in this stanza, he laughs and bares his teeth against the world. To us, the fall of Icarus is nothing but tragedy, and the character of Icarus is one to be pitied. This line seems antithetical to the story of Icarus that we know. Though this prepares us for the second line, it can’t completely mitigate the clash between our ideas about Icarus and the picture of him this poem paints. But the first line hints that perhaps we don’t perhaps there’s some secret we’ve been missing. Immediately, we bring preconceived notions about the Greek myth, already thinking we know what’s coming. It stands on its own without context, yet within the second line, we know exactly what this poem is about: “Icarus” (2). The poem above has no title, and was posted with only the name “Fiona” to tie it down.
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