W.H. Auden ."Musee des Beaux Arts"

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.

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W.H. AUDEN:
W.H. Auden Society
Literary society commemorating the life and works of W.H. Auden. Lots of links to his works and related items.
http://audensociety.org/

ICARUS (the myth):
Icarus
A quick synopsis of the boy, the wings, the legend. Including an excerpt from Ovid's Metamorphoses which describes in detail Ovid's point of view on the matter.
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~nonsuch/dict/glossary/icarus.htm

The Story of Icarus
Someone's personal redition of the perils of Icarus.
http://www.applink.net/realm/icarus_story.html

Icarus Rising
Site with a nice story of the legend of Icarus, while at the same time paying tribute to the crew of STS-51L.
http://members.aol.com/ramjetfdo/private/Space/IcarusRising.html

Daedalus
Site with extensive critique of Ovid's Metamorposis.
http://gallery.uunet.be/lqua.mhoe/daedalus.htm

Allusions - Icarus Site Map
A site with information on works of art (painting and literature) that refer to the myth of Icarus. Obviously a school related site, so the info is very related to assignment for that course.
http://www.tc.cc.va.us/faculty/tcreisd/projects/icarus/sitemap.htm

BREUGHEL (the elder):
Breughel's Work
Quality large scale images of some of Breughel's paintings.
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/%7Eadama/breughel.html

Discovering Breughel
A bit about Breughel, where he lived where he worked and the convenient option of taking a tour of the Breughel hotspots in Brussels.
http://www.brusselsdiscovery.com/we/WE12/we1.html

Ultimate Saver- Breughel
Place where you can download a screensaver which displays Breughel's work.
http://www.ultimatesavers.com/index.asp?ID=2480

Breughel -Encyclopedia
Columbia Encyclopedia entry about Breughel (the family).
http://www.bartleby.com/65/br/Bruegel.html