Icarus

Icarus: From Hero to Zero In the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus, Icarus foolishly flies too close to the sun, which melts his waxed wings, causing him to tumble down to earth. In his poem “Icarus,” Edward Field drastically alters this tale by allowing Icarus to survive this catastrophic fall. Field adapts this myth to a contemporary setting, thereby reducing Icarus to a mere human, through his selection of detail, melancholy tone, and paradoxical circumstances. In the first stanza of the poem, Field sets the contemporary scene through his selection of detail. In these opening lines, he mentions “gang wars,” “police files,” and house rentals, features unique to modern-day society. Field specifically includes details that are never found in the settings of traditional Greek myths to unmistakably establish the setting’s transformation into a contemporary scene. By using caesura in the third line, Field shocks the readers with a surprising mention of police. The period interrupts the line just as the presence of officers disrupts the traditional setting of the myth. Field further sets the surprising modern scene in the last few lines of the stanza by including the details that Icarus had “rented a house” and “tended the garden,” two acts consistent with a typical contemporary lifestyle. Such mundane actions are sharply contrasted with exhilaration of flying alongside the sun. In the second stanza, Field establishes Icarus’ unhappiness with his life in the modern world, especially through his varied syntax and disheartening tone. In this stanza, Field begins almost every other line with negative words such as “never,” “nor,” and “no.” This repetition of such undesirable words mirrors Icarus’ discontent with his current state. Field further creates a depressed tone through his shifted diction. He now uses phrases such as “sad, defeated eyes” and “middling stature” to convey Icarus’ frustration with his mundane life as a human in contemporary