What is the importance of the character Icarus in W.H. Auden's “Musée des Beaux Arts”?
The allusion to Icarus is made after W. H. Auden observed in Brussel's art museum a painting by the Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel entitled, The Fall of Icarus, the mythological son of Daedalus, who constructed wings of feather held by wax which enabled them to fly. When Icarus donned these wings, he became so ecstatic in his ability to fly that he ignored the warnings of his father not to get too close to the sun because the wax would melt and the wings would come apart.
Auden's poem was written after his visit to the museum in 1938 in which he noticed how the painter minimalized the significance of Icarus's plummeting into the sea in his pastoral scene. In his mind, Auden likened this marginal notice of man's misfortune to the defeat of the Loyalists in the Civil War of Spain, a defeat which received peripheral notice in the rest...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
of Europe despite the fact that this war gave rise to Fascism. Auden's poem "Musee des Beaux Arts" reflects this idea as he depicts the horror of universal apathy:
...That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree....
...and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
In Greek mythology, Icarus is the son of master craftsman Daedalus, who creates wings for each of them in order to escape from Crete. The wings were held together by wax, and Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun--for obvious reasons. Probably for equally obvious reasons, Icarus did just what his father warned him NOT to do, and he fell to his death.
The poem begins with the comment that "the Old Masters" (the great artists whose works are apparently hanging in this museum) "were never wrong" about suffering--if it doesn't happen to you, it doesn't matter very much. The poem's narrator uses Brueghel's painting depicting the fall of Icarus to prove that point.
"...the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure...."
The farmer was not affected by the incident, so it didn't matter to him.
"...and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on."
Again, personal tragedy is just that--personal.
Who was Icarus in mythology, and what is his role in the poem "Musée des Beaux Arts?"
In W.H. Audens's poem "Musée des Beaux Arts," one section of the painting contains the deathly dive of Icarus into the sea. Icarus is the son of Daedalus, the architect who had formed the Labyrinth and who showed Ariadne how Thesus could escape from it.
When King Minos learned that the Athenians had found their way out, he was convinced that Daedalus had been instrumental in their escape. Therefore, he imprisoned Daedalus and his son Icarus in this very Labyrinth. Not even the maker could find his way out without his clues, so Daedalus told his son,
Escape may be checked by water and land, but the air and the sky are free.
So, Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings for them. When they put them on, Daedalus warned his son not to fly too close to the sun because the wings were held by wax. But, as is the case so often, the son did not heed his father's warning, and as they left Crete, Icarus delighted so in his power of flight that he rose so high in the sky that he was too close to the sun. The wax holding the feathers together melted, and he crashed into the sea. This final moment is depicted in the painting, but the other people in it do not heed the tragedy.
References