Same-Day Diction In Edward Fields's 'Icarus'

In Icarus, by Edward Fields, the poet twists the myth into a contemporary manner. He utilizes latter-day diction and dull imagery to modernize the myth and exploit the main character’s ordinary life style . Fields embedding of modern diction in his poem aided him in achieving his goal to transform the myth into a contemporary adaptation. By using terms such as "gang war " and "commuter trains" in his poem, Fields emphasizes to the reader that the poem is in occuring in a recent time since these are words not commonly used by Greeks during their era. Even though the poem is based off of the Icarus myth, Fields's diction separated it from the classical language of the Greek myths as he employs a more modern utilization of words to describe Icarus as one who is hopeless instead of one who is powerful and

For example, when describing Mr. Hick's attitude for life as, "he wishes he had drowned." (30) This attitude clearly is contrary to that of a heroic God; one who is powerful and is overly glorified. Additionally, Fields employs adjectives like "those" and "that" instead of older pronouns such as "thy" and thee." The wording of this poem greatly changes the era for which the reader finds the poem to be written in. Most importantly, the wording deeply supports the transformation of Field's interpretation of the Icarus myth to that of the modern day Icarus as he too lives in a life without powers or heroism. This lack of power and heroism from the society of Icarus can also be an example of today's society. Tragedy is still found around the world from the same selfishness and carelessness as those who ignored Icarus many centuries ago. While