ICARUS
ICARUS

Summary/Abstract: Daedalus in the Metamorphoses may be interpreted as one of Ovid's typical artist figures, like Pygmalion or Arachne. A detailed comparative analysis of Ovid's two Daedalus-Icarus episodes, and similarly the structure of Met. VIII. 183-259. go to show that here is Icarus in the limelight as an artist allegory, serving to express the poet's view on poetry and his own role in it. His winged artist refuses the Horatian middle course and approaches to the winged soul of Plato's Phaedrus, representing at the same time the tragical impossibility of its attempt.

• Details
• Contents