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PEIRAMATIKO SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THESSALONIKI
Icarus
Georgia Kelessi Elpida KelessiB1
2012-2013
• In Greek mythology, Icarus is the son of the master craftsman Daedalus. The main story told about Icarus is his attempt to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. But he ignored instructions not to fly too close to the sun, and the melting wax caused him to fall into the sea where he drowned.
A few words about Icarus
The Lament for Icarus by H. J. Draper
The storyDaedalus was shut up in a tower to
prevent his knowledge of his Labyrinth from spreading to the public. He could not leave Crete by sea, as the king kept strict
watch on all vessels, permitting none to sail without being
carefully searched. Since Minos controlled the land and sea
routes, Daedalus set to work to fabricate wings for himself and his
young son Icarus.
Daedalus constructs wings for his son, Icarus, after a Roman relief in the Villa Albani
The storyWhen the work was done, the artist, waving his wings, found himself buoyed upward and hung suspended, poising himself on the beaten air. He next
equipped his son in the same manner, and taught him how to fly. When both were prepared for flight, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too high,
because the heat of the sun would melt the wax, nor too low, because the sea
foam would soak the feathers.
The storyThey had passed Samos, Delos and Lebynthos by the
time the boy, forgetting himself, began to soar upward toward the sun. The blazing sun softened the wax which held the feathers together and they came off. Icarus fell into the sea and drowned. His father cried, bitterly lamenting his own arts, and
called the land near the place where Icarus fell into the ocean Icaria in memory of his child.
Ancient literatureIcarus' flight was often alluded to by Greek
poets in passing, but the story was told briefly in Pseudo-Apollodorus. In
the literature of ancient Rome, the myth was of interest to
Augustan writers. Hyginus narrates it in Fabula 40, beginning with the bovine love
affair of Pasiphaë, daughter of the Sun, resulting in the birth of the Minotaur. Ovid narrates the story of Icarus at some length in the Metamorphoses and refers to it
elsewhere.
Classical traditionOvid's treatment of the Icarus myth and its
connection with that of Phaëton influenced the mythological tradition in English literature as
received and interpreted by major writers such as Chaucer, Marlowe,S hakespeare,
Milton, and Joyce. In Renaissance iconography, the significance of Icarus depends on context: in
the Orion Fountain at Messina, he is one of many figures associated with water; but he is also shown on the Bankruptcy Court of the Amsterdam Town Hall - where he symbolizes high-flying ambition.
InterpretationLiterary interpretation has found in the myth the
structure and consequence of personal over-ambition. An Icarus-related study of the Daedalus
myth was published by the French hellenist Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux. In psychology there have been
synthetic studies of the Icarus complex with respect to the alleged relationship between fascination for fire, enuresis, high ambition, and ascensionism.
InterpretationIn the psychiatric mind features of disease
were perceived in the shape of the pendulous emotional ecstatic-high and
depressive-low of bi-polar disorder. Henry Murray having proposed the term Icarus
complex, apparently found symptoms particularly in mania where a person is fond
of heights, fascinated by both fire and water, narcissistic and observed with
fantastical or far-fetched-imaginary cognition
Thank You For Your Attention!