19 pages • 38 minutes read
William Carlos WilliamsA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
William Carlos Williams’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus” is an ekphrastic poem that describes a painting attributed to Pieter Brueghel the Elder to reflect on the themes of The Tension Between Myth and Reality, The Transience of Human Experience, and The Power of Nature. The very first words of the poem, “According to Brueghel” (Line 1) call attention the poem’s intimate relationship with the visual artwork and establish the authority behind the poem. Though the myth of Icarus originated in ancient Greece and featured in many ancient and modern works of literature and art, including Ovid’s Metamorphoses (8 CE), the poem remains primarily interested in Brueghel’s idiosyncratic interpretation of the famous myth. At the same time, it is telling that the poem is an incomplete description of Brueghel’s painting. For example, Williams does not speak at all of the activity along the coastline, the shepherd with his sheep in the pasture, the fisherman casting his net, or the several ships unfurling their sails as they head out to sea. Williams’s description is sparing—focusing on the farmer and the fallen man—seeking to convey meaning rather than recreate exactly everything in the visual image.
By William Carlos Williams
Approach of Winter
William Carlos Williams
Between Walls
William Carlos Williams
In the American Grain
William Carlos Williams
Paterson
William Carlos Williams
Spring and All
William Carlos Williams
Spring Storm
William Carlos Williams
The Red Wheelbarrow
William Carlos Williams
The Young Housewife
William Carlos Williams
This Is Just to Say
William Carlos Williams
To Elsie
William Carlos Williams
To Waken An Old Lady
William Carlos Williams