Ekphrasis.

Last week’s in class exercise showed us how an image can elicit varying responses depending upon the viewer’s perspective and at the same time certain aspects of the images seem to communicate the same thing to everyone. The photo of the widow for example seemed to clearly show her sadness while the objects surrounding her produced a variety of interpretations.

The two ekphrastic poems about Brueghel’s Landscape With The Fall of Icarus demonstrate a similar occurrence. In Auden’s poem Musee des Beaux Arts the ploughman turns leisurely away implying he is indifferent to the suffering of Icarus even though he had likely heard the splash. William Carlos Williams portrays the event slightly differently: the whole pageantry/of the year was/ tingling/ near. Williams’ depiction of the ploughman is that he is distracted by some form of joy in his work.

Another difference in the two poems is that Auden focuses on the intentionality of the artist who produced the painting and the people in it. Williams focuses on the landscape. It is interesting to see divergent focal points in a single image.

(I won’t say much about Keats. His poem is a very dramatic account of an inanimate object? It’s hard for me to follow this one from beginning to end. It seems mostly like a lament about mortality. Didn’t get a clear picture of the Urn in question.)

Auden’s The Shield of Achilles was an interesting poem to read. In comparison to the previously mentioned works this one had a clearer narrative. It took the initial visual object, Achilles shield, and compared it to a modern scene while at the same time conjuring ancient images of Greece.

The first stanza focuses on the past and then the poem shifts to a modern scene with an barbed wire. I felt that more so than the other poems this one really encouraged the reader to visualize what the poem was describing.

Homer describes the shield as an intricately crafted object. He describes it as being made from gold and silver. It depicts the entire night sky whereas Auden’s description is bleaker. Homer describes it in a reverent way as opposed to the dismal lead shield with an “untamed sea.” The way in which each describes the shield frames the reader’s perception. Cultural circumstances and beliefs may have led to each author’s description. Auden’s poem is post WWII and during the cold war leading to a bleak outlook.

Also the style of poetry written in Homer’s time was different. Epic poems promoted heroes and cultural prosperity.

e.caffey