so today was the last day of my english class, and it was a little sad, due to the fact it completely restored my love of literature. today was one of my favorite days so far, we dissected poetry by ted hughes, w.h. auden, and phillip larkin. the poem that stood out to me the most though was "Musee de Beaux Arts" by w.h. auden. It's written about the painting by Pieter Bruegel depicting the fall of Icarus. Instead of having the classic Greek myth as the subject of the painting, it's only an insignificant part of the painting, which is focused on the common people going on with their daily jobs tasks. I loved the message the poem sent across, that although pain and suffering haunts the world, life essentially goes on. This sounds like a cheesy, encouraging message to send across but it in
stead focuses more on the apathy that is cursed upon society, that so many average things coexist with such great pain. Also, I just find the myth of Icarus particularly interesting. Anyway, here is the poem and the painting so you can get an idea of it.
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
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.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; 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.
