Poetry Landscape With the Fall of Icarus

Landscape With the Fall of Icarus

William Carlos Williams was an American poet well-known for his unique writing style and subject matter. A renowned imagist writer, Williams offers a curt description of Pieter Brueghel's painting "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus." Williams' interpretation of Breughel's painting is quite different from the lush, descriptive writing of W.H. Auden who also referred to Breughel's "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" in his poem "Musee des Beaux Arts." In the poem "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus," Williams relies on allusion to express his interpretation and perspective of Breughel's painting.

One of the most interesting things about Williams' "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus," is the use of allusion, as it has to be applied at several levels. The primary level at which allusion is applied is from Breughel's perspective. In "The Fall of Icarus," Breughel depicts a peasant plowing his fields, which overlook an elaborate coastline and an expansive seascape. In the lower right corner of the painting, Breughel paints Icarus falling into the water, whose fall goes unrecognized by the peasants in the painting (Breughel). The reference to Icarus' fall is the first level of allusion that occurs in the Williams-Breughel dynamic. Breughel relies on the audience to have prior knowledge of the legend of Icarus before his audience is exposed to the painting. Additionally, Breughel alludes to the how insignificant a single person's selfish and personal problems are in the grand scheme of things. Regardless of tragedy, life will still go on and people need to focus on what they need to accomplish to keep going. Icarus serves as an example of someone who tried and failed, yet his story is meant to inspire and discipline, which Icarus lacked.

Williams builds upon this allusion, also assuming that his audience has prior knowledge of the Icarus myth and also uses allusion to refer to Breughel's work itself. Williams writes his poem from a first-person perspective and comments on the simplicity of Breughel's painting through simplistic diction, which is one of Williams' trademarks. Moreover, it is clear that Williams has analyzed the painting as he comments, "According to Breughel/when Icarus fell/it was spring" and "a farmer was ploughing/his field" (Williams lines 1-5). Williams, like Breughel, does not focus on Icarus' fall, but rather on the everyday life that Breughel witnessed around him. It can be argued that Breughel is successful in highlighting the simplicity of life of the times as Williams is also drawn to these elements in the painting. Williams continues to describe what he sees and comments that the farmers are working as hard, or possibly harder than, Icarus and are "sweating in the sun/that melted the wings' wax" (line 10-12). Like Breughel, Williams appears to be commenting on the benefits of discipline and perseverance; Icarus was too proud to listen to his father, Daedalus, who warned him not to fly too close to the sun, which may be an allusion to the dangers of playing with forces that one cannot control.

It is interesting to see how Breughel's allusion to Icarus' fall translates to Williams and how he interprets the fall in his poem. Williams notes how insignificant Breughel interpreted Icarus' fall by stating, "unsignificantly/off the coast/there was//a splash quite unnoticed/this was Icarus drowning" (lines 13-18). Williams' attention to this detail indicates that he was not simply looking at Breughel's painting, but that he was studying every aspect of it much like a critic would.