The King of the Ants (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Zbigniew Herbert
- First Published: 1999
- Type of Work: Mythology and philosophy
- Time of Work: The mythological past
- Setting: The world of mythology
- Principal Characters: Securitas, Hecuba, Thersites, Ares, Atlas, Antaeus, Ajax
- Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy
- Subjects: Suffering, Mythology or myths, Communism or communists, Revolutionaries, Poetry or poets, Islands, Greek or Roman times, Poland or Polish people, Totalitarianism, Fables
- Locales: Greece, ancient, Roman Empire, Troy, ancient, Mount Olympus (mythic)
In his poem “Musée des Beaux Arts” (1940), the English writer W. H. Auden reflects, “About suffering they were never wrong/ The Old Masters.” The work which prompted this reflection was the painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus by the sixteenth century Flemish master Pieter Bruegel, the Elder. Bruegel’s painting, and by extension, Auden’s poem, were themselves contemplations on the ancient myth of the flight and fall of Icarus and its relevance to contemporary life, especially the myth’s inherent meaning, which translates (outwardly different but inwardly...
[The entire page is 1933 words long]
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