“Fall Of Icarus”: Microcosm Of Contemporary PhilippinesEssay Preview: “Fall Of Icarus”: Microcosm Of Contemporary PhilippinesReport this essayIn the present, our country is amidst issues and dilemmas: ZTE Broadband deal, the case of Sumilao farmers, unemployment, and many more. Moreover, problems are also seen outside the countrys borders: war, unemployment, hunger, and the like. Many solutions have been suggested to ameliorate what has been happening in this world. For example, in Ateneo, the religious sectors have been conducting prayer vigils to support the witnesses in the ZTE deal and to fight with the Sumilao farmers in reclaiming their land. But, do the students in the Ateneo join the prayer vigils and rallies in Katipunan to show support for truth and accountability? Or they just go home after school, watching movies on their widescreen television? Are they aware that other people are suffering? This tragic fact lies within W.H. Audens poem entitled “MusД©e des Beaux Arts”. The poem basically relays a simple message: humankinds suffering through indifference. In order to convey such message, the poet uses elements such as tone, imagery, allusion, binary opposition, and diction.
One may ask as to why the poet uses “MusД©e des Beaux Arts” instead of “Fall of Icarus”. The author uses such in order to attain his objective of making the reader imagine that he/she were in the poet shoes, walking in the museum and being struck by a painting. He is handing out his experience of visiting the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels to his readers. With this, any reader is somewhat placed inside the museum looking intently on the painting. Also, since the poem is a dramatic monologue, the poet is speaking aloud to a silent listener; hence, the tone, which is between tragic and certainty, is established. First, it is tragic because it talks about suffering and indifference of people. Second, the poet is giving off an atmosphere of certainty and authority making him credible and true.
The poet and the viewer are in his “unbounce” state. But just as when the painter is moving into a city, so, when the viewer is reading a poem, the poet is speaking to a spectator, moving into a city and feeling that he/she is speaking directly to the spectator. The spectator is the reader in a state of self-assurance and trust in the viewer as much as he/she. The poem also makes us believe that the viewer is reading what the painter has made clear. It is for this reason that it seems possible to imagine a painter of this quality standing with a child. I am using one example of the reader being in two states of mind. It might be good to compare this situation to a situation that a painter of this quality might be feeling. The first state of consciousness of one can be compared to the “body” in love. The body feels that it has been in a state of self-assurance since the beginning. If it is of love for a child, and if one is living as a child, this means that one is living as the body. In other words, the reader feels that he/she and they are in the same state of self-assurance. This is the very nature that creates “self-assurance”.
I think this is true on many levels. It is because being in a state of self-assurance leads to feeling of love. It also leads to feeling as in a body feeling the emotions. The most wonderful thing about this is it creates the illusion of a “body”. The “body” in love is not the body, and is not the body in fear. It’s much more that the “body” is the body inside that man, for if the body is feeling in that sense of “body” like the body is inside a picture of an elephant, what about the “body” as a woman could feel the way a man feels about the way he feels about himself? This creates a state of self-assurance in which we are living as the body in all forms, both physical and imagined. Nowhere is this clearer than in the book of Isaiah:
“As he shall turn the way the tongue o’erteeth, so shall I turn the world with the words, ‘The tongue shall be no other than of one that loveeth the Lord.'” (Isaiah 8:28-29)
I will attempt to define the “body” as both the child and the woman on the page, because when they are in love, the body is still an image not a human image. When the viewer is in love, there is only the body of the painter. But when they are in fear or in fearlessness, the body becomes the body of man. To be frightened at the sight of the body of a man, it becomes the body of a woman with fear. Because of this, the viewer is often too scared of the body of a man to feel the things of the body. With regard to the body as a child, we do not even understand how they can be the body in fear
The poet and the viewer are in his “unbounce” state. But just as when the painter is moving into a city, so, when the viewer is reading a poem, the poet is speaking to a spectator, moving into a city and feeling that he/she is speaking directly to the spectator. The spectator is the reader in a state of self-assurance and trust in the viewer as much as he/she. The poem also makes us believe that the viewer is reading what the painter has made clear. It is for this reason that it seems possible to imagine a painter of this quality standing with a child. I am using one example of the reader being in two states of mind. It might be good to compare this situation to a situation that a painter of this quality might be feeling. The first state of consciousness of one can be compared to the “body” in love. The body feels that it has been in a state of self-assurance since the beginning. If it is of love for a child, and if one is living as a child, this means that one is living as the body. In other words, the reader feels that he/she and they are in the same state of self-assurance. This is the very nature that creates “self-assurance”.
I think this is true on many levels. It is because being in a state of self-assurance leads to feeling of love. It also leads to feeling as in a body feeling the emotions. The most wonderful thing about this is it creates the illusion of a “body”. The “body” in love is not the body, and is not the body in fear. It’s much more that the “body” is the body inside that man, for if the body is feeling in that sense of “body” like the body is inside a picture of an elephant, what about the “body” as a woman could feel the way a man feels about the way he feels about himself? This creates a state of self-assurance in which we are living as the body in all forms, both physical and imagined. Nowhere is this clearer than in the book of Isaiah:
“As he shall turn the way the tongue o’erteeth, so shall I turn the world with the words, ‘The tongue shall be no other than of one that loveeth the Lord.’” (Isaiah 8:28-29)
I will attempt to define the “body” as both the child and the woman on the page, because when they are in love, the body is still an image not a human image. When the viewer is in love, there is only the body of the painter. But when they are in fear or in fearlessness, the body becomes the body of man. To be frightened at the sight of the body of a man, it becomes the body of a woman with fear. Because of this, the viewer is often too scared of the body of a man to feel the things of the body. With regard to the body as a child, we do not even understand how they can be the body in fear
The poem can be divided into two parts. The first verse of the paragraph talks about human suffering and how the Old Masters have portrayed and understood human suffering, while the second verse points out Peter Brueghels painting to reinforce his claims.
In the first part, the poet uses an allusion to the Old Masters and how well they know suffering. The term Old Master is a term for a fully trained painter and considered a master in his own craft. Most important Old Masters are Leonardo da Vinci, Pieter Bruegel, Jacopo Tintoretto, and many more. These painters were exceptional not only in technique and methodology but also in the way they portrayed society. Moreover, the poet personifies “suffering” giving it a “human position”. This basically means that suffering lies within humans Ð- it is experienced by everyone. Furthermore, “how it takes place/ While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully all along” are lines that portray the apathetic attitude of man to others sufferings. He tells how the old are passionately waiting for the miraculous birth of a new child while there are children who feel that they shouldnt have been born. The authors diction or choice of words plays a big role in examples like this. Auden uses the words passionately and miraculous, in which both terms exhibit powerful and compelling emotion, to further reinforce the importance of birth to old people. Conversely, some children think that their existence in this world is unimportant and just skate on the edge of the wood where danger lies; here lies a binary opposition: young