Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (poem)

"Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" is an ecphrastic poem by the 20th-century American poet William Carlos Williams that was written upon seeing Pieter Brueghel's "Landscape With The Fall of Icarus".

The poem, as indicated by the title, touches upon the Greek tragedy of Icarus, the story in which Icarus, the son of Daedalus, took flight from prison wearing wings made from wax and feathers. Icarus, disregarding his father's wishes that he not fly too close to the sun, did just that and melted his way to a feathery demise, drowning in the sea. This subject — and Brueghel's painting — are also treated by another Modernist poet, W. H. Auden, in "Musee Des Beaux Arts."

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus rings true to William Carlos Williams’ style of poetry – a style that employs enjambment and meter to illustrate the message of the poem as much as – if not more so – than traditional plot and imagery.

Thus, Williams takes us along the journey of the mythical Icarus as he soared on wax wings. At least, at the very beginning of the poem, it seems as if it is just a flight. The enjambment pulls us steadily through the poem as if on an easy drifting through the sky. We explore the scenery along with Icarus, and yet, the poem seems not to even be about Icarus. The poem is the journey, the scenery, the day rather than a story. However, it is at the final line of William’s poem that we realize the true focus of the poem: “Icarus drowning”. William reveals to us his initial deceit, showing us that the poem was a descent rather than a flight – each stanza pulling the reader from the sky, and bringing us quite literally to the ending: death. This little surprise at the end mirrors Icarus’ own supposed surprise.

Here is Williams's poem in full:

According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings' wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning