Compare the ways in which "Auden 's"Musee Des Beaux Arts" and, "Brueghel's "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus" use contrast to establish tone. Include at least one example of text evidence from the poem and at least one example of a visual image from the painting in your answer. Click here to view Auden’s poem and Bruegel’s painting
Musee des Beaux Arts
By W.H. Auden
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.
Copyright © 1976 by Edward Mendelson, William
Answers
sympathy is true thing but gold is not. sympathy is price less but gold is not.
sympathy is like a feeling which comes from a heart but gold is not because gold is material like metal.
Comparing the use of contrast in "The fall of Icarus" and "Musee des Beaux Arts" by W.H. Auden.
Explanation:
The poem "Musee des Beaux Arts" is about the fine arts museum which is in Brussels, where the poet saw the paintings by Brueghel.
The poem reflects the consequences of war on life. The poet considers war pointless as it only leads to destruction, she wants to create awareness through this poem.
The painting shows people living life beautifully by doing various things like ploughing, shepherding. The painting shows the legs of Icarus, which drowns when he flies close to the sun. The basic idea of the poem as well as the painting is death with similar themes including Icarus, but the tones are somewhat different, the tone of "Landscape with the fall of Icarus" is solemn and gloomy whereas the tone of "Musee des Beaux Arts" is happy and cheerful. The former is basically about Icarus and the latter one is includes various incidents of life, both pointing towards the same theme i.e. death.