Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1960

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Symbols & Motifs

The Farmer

The figure of the farmer in William Carlo Williams’s poem serves as a symbol of human preoccupation with the mundane in the face of grand narratives—and the insignificance of those grand narratives in the face of the mundane. The second stanza describes the farmer working in his field as “the whole pageantry / of the year was / awake tingling (Lines 6-8).

The farmer’s labor is juxtaposed with the larger natural world but also with the fall of Icarus, underscoring the contrast between individual human activities and mythical events, while also highlighting that this contrast is ultimately meaningless. The farmer, like the rest of the bucolic “pageantry” unfolding in the landscape, is preoccupied with his own tasks, representing the human tendency to ignore what is not immediately relevant (such as the drowning Icarus). The farmer thus symbolizes the priority that the everyday takes over mythical narratives, whose grand tone belies their transience and insignificance.

The farmer also exists as a foil to Icarus—his own humble labor, which produces nourishment and works with the rules of nature, contrasts sharply with Icarus’s folly as he attempts to defy the natural order by flying too close to the sun.

The Sun

The sun also serves a symbolic role in the poem, representing both the relentless forces of nature and the impermanence of human experiences and aspirations. The sun occupies a central place in the poem, linking the larger landscape described as “sweating in the sun” (Line 13) with Icarus, whose “wings’ wax” (Line 15) are melted by the sun. The sun’s intense heat is thus the catalyst that precipitates Icarus’s tragic fall, transforming the mythical into a tangible reality. This description of the sun’s role—destructive but also indifferent—captures the inexorable power of nature and its ability to shape human events.

Williams’s personification of the world as “sweating in the sun” (Line 13) turns the sun into a metaphor for nature’s merciless strength. Harsh as it is, though, this reality is not malicious, but simply indifferent; the sun cares no more about the rest of the world than it does about Icarus, whose fall is caused by the sun melting the wax holding his wings together. The sun’s portrayal as an unrelenting force aligns with the poem’s broader theme of the transience of human experiences, as its heat can diminish the most ambitious efforts. The sun becomes a reminder of the fleeting nature of individual endeavors.

Icarus

Icarus is both central and peripheral to the poem. His fall serves to illustrate the themes of The Transience of Human Experience and The Tension between Myth and Reality. But at its core, the poem is ironically unconcerned with Icarus. The momentousness of Icarus’s tragic fall is undercut by the relegation of this event to an unnoticed splash at the end of the poem. Icarus’s insignificance can already be felt in the first stanza, where Icarus’s fall is juxtaposed with the spring, the season of renewal that represents the cyclical nature of reality. This reality is “concerned / with itself” (Lines 11-12) and is not interested in Icarus as he dies “unsignificantly” (Line 16), his wings melted by the sun. Icarus is reduced to “a splash quite unnoticed / this was / Icarus drowning (Lines 19-21).

Icarus thus represents the insignificance of human experiences and pursuits within the larger fabric of nature, where the “pageantry” (Line 6) is an attribute of the natural world and the landscape itself rather than any single human figure, their mythical status notwithstanding.