Cover artwork: Ben Arthur, Scotland. Designed and etched by Joseph Mallord William Turner. 1819.
When I started looking more deeply into fantasy literature history, I decided to include poetry along with the short stories and novels. Searching for something literary, even without looking specifically for poems, opened my eyes to types of poetry I hadn’t even known to look for - not particularly because the poets were obscure, but rather because I had no handhold on the medium.
I came across Stephen Vincent Benét, an American poet from the early 1900s. Imagine that! I didn’t realize Americans wrote poetry during that time and were known for it! For people who know poetry, this is probably an obvious fact, but for me, it was huge.
Benét won two Pulitzers for poetry - a 1929 Pulitzer for John Brown’s Body, which focused on the Civil War, and a posthumous 1944 Pulitzer for Western Star, which focused on American settlers. They’re very long works and I haven’t read them. However, he also wrote several fantasy short stories that ranged from the apocalyptic to the comical, which meant he eventually appeared on my radar.
Benét wrote in a satisfyingly direct way. He spoke plainly with precise language in his prose and wrote richly with precise language in his poetry. When he wanted, the words stacked up to become something majestic.
In an attempt to be thorough, I’d searched for his earliest works and found Young Adventure, a 1918 poetry volume. He would have been 20 when it was published, give or take a few months. For him, it was a young adventure. I’d scrolled through the table of contents, keeping an eye out for anything that sounded fantasy-adjacent, and decided to click on “Winged Man.”
This is how I fell in love with poetry.
The moon, a sweeping scimitar, dipped in the stormy straits,
The dawn, a crimson cataract, burst through the eastern gates,
The cliffs were robed in scarlet, the sands were cinnabar,
Where first two men spread wings for flight and dared the hawk afar.
“Winged Man” retells the Greek myth about Icarus, the boy who wore mechanical wings to escape the labyrinth in Crete. Icarus flew with his father, Daedalus. Daedalus warned him not to fly too close to the sun or too low towards the water. Daedalus warned him of hubris, or excessive ambition or pride. The wings were held together with wax.
Now he shouts, now he sings in the rapture of his wings,
And his great heart burns intenser with the strength of his desire,
As he circles like a swallow, wheeling, flaming, gyre on gyre.
11 Stanzas: four with four lines, seven with three. The first four stanzas - the four line ones - stick to AABB, but the seven three line stanzas shift and begin to carry in-line rhymes before falling to end-line rhymes. They fly, just like Icarus, mirroring his path by unexpectedly changing the structure and presenting phrases that reach for lofty goals, even though the reader knows the tale ends in tragedy. The rhyme scheme performs as heavily as the language.
The poem handles Icarus unexpectedly. The story wasn’t altered - Icarus flies towards the limit of the earthly heavens, and his wings melt, and he falls into the sea - but Benét reevaluated his actions. Icarus is traditionally a symbol for over-ambition. Most interpretations focus on Icarus’ downfall. He flew too high and paid the price.
Benét proposed that Icarus knew the stakes. Benét acknowledged the tragedy and yet focused on Icarus’s triumph, on the brief and glorious rise before Icarus tumbled to his well-known undoing. Benét pointed out that when others reference Icarus’s fall, they recall not his aftermath but his achievement: he flew too close to the sun.
Icarus’s flight is nearly always described by those who share the eyes of Daedalus. Just this once, Benét allowed the reader to see the story through someone who shared the eyes of Icarus, for better or for worse.
I appreciate Benét’s ability to present an old myth with a new attention, and to write it so well-crafted that agreeing or disagreeing with his claim doesn’t distract from admiring his diction.
You were Man, you who ran farther than our eyes can scan,
Man absurd, gigantic, eager for impossible Romance,
Overthrowing all Hell's legions with one warped and broken lance.
I have since found other poems to appreciate. I’ve even found other American poets from the same era as Benét(!!).
“Winged Man,” like Icarus, will always run a little further than the others.
interesting read, glad I read it.