Shield Of Achilles

The Shield of Achilles Date: 1955 Author: W. H. Auden From: The Facts On File go with to American Poetry, vol. 2.  W. H. Audens meditation on the reprehensible, warlike nature of the mod world, The Shield of Achilles is based on bell ringers account in the Iliad of the classical god Hephaestoss construction for Achilles of a lodge of accouterments whose rich design and decorations retell the memorial of the world. Written in jump seven-line stanzas ofrime royal (rhymed ABABBCC) and eight-line stanzas rec on the wholeing the ballad stanza (ABCBDEFE), the poem operates on a serial publication of contrasts. The main character, Thetis, watches Hephaestoss labors, and Auden creates an ironic conflict in the midst of her expectations of beautiful scenes and the images Hephaestos renders instead, of purple Rome and of the modern worlds persistence and impersonality. This discrepancy shows the distance between the myth of history and its unrelenting reality ; moreover, Auden suggests, the notion of get up itself is a myth, since the feral past is scarcely distinguishable from the brutal present. The poem thence exemplifies Audens vision of poetry as a powerful focal point to disenchant and disintoxicate the reader (Dyers, 27), freeing maven from the myths and fictions of history that, for all their beauty, often serve to compound or conceal gentle misery.

In book XVIII of the Iliad, Homer writes of how the goddess Thetis, mother of Achilles, the sterling(prenominal) of Greek warriors, petitioned the god Hephaestos to forge him a new suit of armor to replace the one b arren by the trojan leader Hector from the ! body of Achilless kill friend, Patroclus. In describing the ornate design that Hephaestos works into the armor, Homer relates a world history that encompasses all the ages of man, and by connecting art, history, and war, Homer makes heroical poetry a means of exploring the richness of human gardening done a narrative of war. In this lyric poem, Auden alludes to the Homeric narrative through Thetiss initial expectation...If you want to get a full essay, modulate it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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