Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1960

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

The Tension Between Myth and Reality

William Carlos Williams’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” reflects on Brueghel’s interpretation of the myth of Icarus to explore the tension between grand mythical narratives and everyday reality. “According to Brueghel” (Line 1), the death of an individual such as Icarus does not have the same tragic importance that it does in more conventional treatments of the myth. Williams’s poem uses vivid, straightforward language to place the fall of Icarus in the context of the mundane world: “when Icarus fell / it was spring” (Lines 2-3). Williams thus creates a dichotomy or juxtaposition between the timelessness of myth—the fall of Icarus—and the cyclicality of nature and reality (highlighted in the renewal represented by the season of spring).

The mythical figure of Icarus, for all his monumentality, also becomes less real than the symbols of the commonplace and the everyday evoked in the poem, such as the farmer plowing his field. The farmer, like the world at large, is preoccupied with his activity. This is reality. Meanwhile, the mythical Icarus goes “quite unnoticed” (Line 19) as he drowns. Myth is eclipsed by day-to-day reality, its pageantry taken over by the “pageantry / of the year” (Lines 6-7). This is a very idiosyncratic interpretation of the myth of Icarus, which is usually seen as a cautionary tale, a warning of the dangers of reaching too high and flying too close to the sun. Far from seeking to punish Icarus for his excessive ambition, Williams’s depiction hardly registers his existence. Icarus’s death is unimportant, and life goes on, “concerned / with itself” (Lines 11-12), while Icarus dies “unsignificantly” (Line 16).

The Transience of Human Experience

The poem’s use of myth also highlights the transient and fleeting nature of individual human experiences against the larger backdrop of the natural world. The fall of Icarus becomes a metaphor for the relative insignificance of humans and their experiences in the grand scheme of things. Icarus thus dies “unsignificantly” (Line 16) when the sun melts the wax holding his wings together:

there was

a splash quite unnoticed

this was

Icarus drowning (Lines 18-21).

Williams introduces parallels with the figure of the farmer to highlight the insignificance and transience of the human experience. As Icarus dies, the farmer is “ploughing / his field” (Lines 4-5), paying no attention at all to the drowning Icarus. From the farmer’s perspective, Icarus’s death is unimportant. And on a larger scale, the farmer and Icarus are equally transient. Just as Icarus’s death is overshadowed by the landscape, so too the farmer is eclipsed by “the whole pageantry / of the year” (Lines 6-7) that buzzes with life all around him. It is telling that Icarus, a famous figure from classical mythology, becomes no more important than a lowly, nameless farmer. But Icarus and the farmer are indissolubly linked: Even the rhythm of the poem brings them together, with the distinctive meter of the line describing Icarus’s fall—“a splash quite unnoticed” (Line 19)—matching exactly the meter of the line describing the farmer’s work—“a farmer was ploughing” (Line 4). These mirrored lines contain an iamb (da-DUM) followed by an anapest (da-da-DUM) followed by a final unstressed syllable.

The farmer gives way to Icarus, and Icarus dies in a literal “splash” (Line 19)—a fleeting, transient moment that goes unnoticed, a moment that encapsulates the idea of transience. Williams points out with the last words of the poem that “this was / Icarus drowning” (Lines 20-21), shifting to a conversational tone that emphasizes how fleeting and unimportant it was.

The Power of Nature

Even in the title of the poem nature eclipses all else, with “the Fall of Icarus” becoming merely a trivial event contained within the larger “Landscape.” The power and beauty of nature pervades the poem. From the first lines of the poem Williams juxtaposes the fall of Icarus to the awakening of the natural world in the spring. As Icarus dies and the farmer plows his field, “the whole pageantry / of the year was / awake tingling (Lines 6-8). The vitality and renewal symbolized by spring is conveyed in the words “awake tingling” (Line 8). Meanwhile, the farmer’s activity becomes a mirror for nature’s role and how humanity should exist within nature; just as the farmer follows nature’s rules to bring forth produce, the natural world creates and sustains life. Everything in the landscape is interconnected, expressed through Williams’s vivid reference to the “pageantry / of the year” (Lines 6-7). This activity calls attention away from Icarus, whose death is just a “splash” (Line 19) lost at the end of the poem. The boy’s hubris leads him to defy nature’s rules, and he pays the price. This tragedy, however important to Western civilization, is ignored by the continuation of the natural world and lacks any significance.

Williams’s depiction of nature as “concerned / with itself” (Lines 11-12) is also essential, highlighting the self-sufficiency of the natural world. If human beings and their experiences lose significance in the face of natural power, then nature is all-important and all-significant. Figures such as the farmer, the sea, and even Icarus are autonomous and concerned with their own individual activities, while the natural world, the “pageantry / of the year” (Lines 6-7), includes all these individuals and yet remains more than the sum of its parts. The sun, meanwhile, becomes the most potent symbol for the power of nature, causing the personified landscape to sweat, allowing the farmer to produce, and causing death by melting the wax of Icarus’s wings.