--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > << I just noticed that "Icarus *ascending* on > beautiful foolish > arms" defies the myth of Icarus actually > *descending* with wings burnt by > the sun.>> > > Huh? He *ascended* before he ever *decended*. >
What goes up, must come down. Icarus thought he could fly. At the point where he's ascending, he's still under the delusion/illusion that indeed he can fly to the sun. It's only the omniscient storyteller, Joni, (and we, the listeners) who realize the delusion. Icarus' arms are beautiful, but they're foolish - foolish, because we know it's foolish to try to fly to the sun on hand-made wings; we know he's going to crash and burn; but we still believe in the beauty of the attempt and wish, for his sake, that he would make it. You can hear the love and sadness in Joni's voice even as she sings this line. How can you not love Icarus, even though you know he's doomed? So go so many things in life - you really want the guy to make it. Likewise, we know after the fact that Amelia's flight was doomed, but no one knew this when she took off. If she had made it, she would have gone down in history. Because she didn't make it, she still went down in history and probably remains more visible because of it than she would have if she hadn't just disappeared. It's beautiful and sad, the essence of tragedy. This whole false alarm thing is starting to disturb me now, mainly because I have a feeling of what it means but I can't express it in words. I find it hard to separate one part of this song from the next. The whole thing seems to be very stream-of-consciousness type of writing and yet its construction is so tight that it couldn't be. I've just been reading over the lyrics at www.jmdl.com with fresh appreciation of the Jenius of Joni. If I can figure out how to get these thoughts out of my head and onto (virtual) paper, and the thing hasn't been flogged to death by the time I come up with something... I'm sure an entire BOOK could be written just about this poem/song, so trying to do this concisely would be difficult. I can see this book as one of those dreadful scholarly tomes with footnotes all over the place, which could destroy the beauty of the poem - who wants to do that?) ===== Catherine Toronto ______________________________________________________________________ Post your free ad now! http://personals.yahoo.ca
