Poetry Analysis:W.H.Auden's “The Shield of
Achilles”
01.
Analysis of W.H.Auden's “The Shield of Achilles”
.“The Shield of Achilles” belongs to W.H.Auden’s collection The Shield of Achilles published
in 1955The classical myth of Achilles is employed by Auden to exemplify the contrast between
the valiant past and unheroic present. The myth of the past is juxtaposed with the reality of the
present. The classical world is set against modernity. Monroe.K.Spears asserts that the shield
symbolizes images of the human condition. The poem portrays the insignificance of Life devoid
of conviction. The poem thematically is quite similar to Eliot’s “Wasteland” in its depiction of a
world devoid of principles and ethics, that in its march for success has lost the true meaning as
echoed in phrases like “an unintelligible multitude”, ”column by column in a cloud of dust”. etc.
The Homeric myth is rendered into an allegory of the contemporary times. A conceptual
construct drives us from myth to reality, where reality is supposed to demythify myths. It is
Auden’s disgust at the totalitarian regime of the modern world where the individual is relegated.
The Achillean world serves as his mouthpiece to comment on the stagnation of the Modern
world.
Thetis, the mother of Achilles looks at the shield of Achilles that was hanging over his shoulder,
Achilles is the celebrated Greek warrior of the Trojan War. The shield at once acts as an
emblem of art, and a historian, in that it reflects the civilization of a certain time. It was
specially made for Achilles by Haphaestous, the blacksmith of the Gods . The mother
searches for:
For vines and olive trees,
Marble well-governed cities
And ships upon untamed seas,
But there on the shining metal His hands had put instead
An artificial wilderness
And a sky like lead.
It reflects the hollowness and futility of a life that verges on nothingness. The word artificial
points to the superficiality of this sort of life. The sky like ‘lead’ echoes the metallic, frigid and
cold human behaviour.
The plain is without any feature, it has no individuality. There is no blade of grass-no vegetation
and therefore it is barren. No sign of neighbourhood-no communion. In an era of competition,
people have a shortage for the basic amenities of living. What foregrounds the background to
Thetis is a multitude of soldiers. The soldiers waits for the command of their leader. They are an
“unintelligible multitude” just like a herd of cattle no ability to rationally think or speculate.
They are “without expression”: without the power to communicate.
The modern life is one that is based on logic and reasoning. It is characterized by lack of
sentiment. Just as the tone was ‘dry and level’. The issue for war was not discussed with the
multitude-it was an authoritarian assessment. Statistics was enough to prove that the cause was
just. The face ordering the same is not visible either, he has no identity, is a construct by himself.
The line: “No one was cheered and nothing was discussed” echoes Tennyson’s “The Charge of
the Light Brigade”:
Their’s not to make a reply
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die.
Thetis searched the shield for scenes of Greek life as depicted on Keats’ Grecian urn. The phrase
’white flower garlanded heifer” echoes the same. The term ‘ritual pities’ reflects the same. The
‘libation’ refers to the pouring fourth of wine in honour of a God. In their flickering forge-light,
in the dim light of the blacksmith’s workshop, she observes yet another scene. The scene is of a
concentration camp where prisoners of war are kept. Officers cracked jokes to while away the
time. The enemy soldiers amidst of such callousness are captured and tied to three stakes and
killed. The irreverence of the picture, is a reminder of the crucifixion of Christ filled with
overwhelming reverence. The modern society with the loss of religious conviction is juxtaposed
against an act that is emblematic of the redemption of mankind. The image depicted here is a
travesty of Christ’s ordeal. The claustrophobia of confinement and enslavement is referred to in
the line: “Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot.”
The people of the world are cheated by the so-called commander into the logic of their reason.
Little did the common people comprehend that though they were small in comparison, nothing
could be done without their acceptance. They could not hope for help, and therefore no help
came. Nevertheless, redemption lay in their own hands. They die before their bodies, as their
self-respect is crushed under the totalitarian forces.
She looks for athletes at their games, and men and women in dance rhythmically swaying their
limbs to the beat of the music. But in the reflective shield that he held there was no such
‘healthy’ images, but only those of decay and decomposition-“a weed-choked field”.
What one is finally left with is aimless, impulsive peoplese out o hurt each other for no reason at
all.Just like the ‘ragged urchin’ mentioned. People regress into primitivism and develop an
animal-instinct. Unwarranted violence,rape,broken promises and lack of humanity was the order
of the contemporary times.
Hephaestos is the god of fire and metal-smith who made the shield of Achilles. Thetis, the
mother of Achilles cries out in despair at the thought of the inevitability of death, at the
idea of the death of her son. “The strong/ Iron-hearted man” referred to in the poem is
Paris destined to slay Achilles. War, a metaphor of life, where people are caught in the race
of survival of the fittest, spares no one and one eventually succumbs to the same.
02.
1952She looked over his shoulder For vines and olive trees,Marble well-governed citiesAnd ships upon
untamed seas,But there on the shining metalHis hands had put insteadAn artificial wildernessAnd a sky
like lead.A plain without a feature, bare and brown,No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,Yet, congregated on its blankness, stoodAn unintelligible
multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,Without expression, waiting for a sign.Out of the air a voice
without a faceProved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;Column by column
in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.She looked over his shoulderFor ritual
pieties,White flower-garlanded heifers,Libation and sacrifice,But there on the shining metalWhere the
altar should have been,She saw by his flickering forge-lightQuite another scene.Barbed wire enclosed an
arbitrary spotWhere bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:A crowd of ordinary decent folkWatched from without and
neither moved nor spoke
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.The mass and majesty of this world, allThat carries weight
and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were smallAnd could not hope for help and no help came:What their
foes like to do was done, their shame
Was all the worst could wish; they lost their pride
And died as men before their bodies died.She looked over his shoulderFor athletes at their games,Men
and women in a danceMoving their sweet limbsQuick, quick, to music,But there on the shining shieldHis
hands had set no dancing-floorBut a weed-choked field.A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,Loitered
about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,Were
axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.The thin-lipped armorer,Hephaestos, hobbled away,Thetis of
the shining breastsCried out in dismayAt what the god had wroughtTo please her son, the strongIronhearted man-slaying AchillesWho would not live long.
03.
Achilles is the Greek hero and the protagonist of Homer's military epic the "Iliad." Homer
chronicles in great detail and in a grand manner the heroic deeds of Achilles during the Trojan
war. During the course of the war, Achilles had lost his armour after lending it to his dearest
friend Patroclus who was killed in the war by Hector. Achilles' mother Thetis asks the
blacksmith of the gods, Hephaestus to make new armour for Achilles. The new shield which
Hephaestus made for Achilles is described in great detail by Homer in Book 18, lines 478-608 of
the "Iliad." It is a classic example of an 'ekphrasis' or 'ecphrasis,' that is, a dramatic and vivid
description of a visual art. Homer describes vividly the images which decorate the shield in nine
concentric circles or layers. There are various interpretations to the images found on the shield,
but what is central to the images is the all comprehensive variety, vitality and fecundity of
human life in general.
Auden's "The Shield of Achilles" (1953) is his direct 'modern' response to Homer's description of
Achilles' shield. The numerical symbolism of the nine layers or concentric circles of Homer's
Achilles' shield is mirrored in W.H.Auden's poem which has nine stanzas.To quote from the
refernce link of enotes:
"Stanzas 1, 4, 7, and 9 are set squarely in ancient Greece, and the reader’s gaze is directed
toward Thetis and Hephaestos. These stanzas are composed of eight three-stress lines; the second
and fourth lines rhyme, as do the sixth and eighth. The other stanzas, in which the scenes of
modern life are presented in detail, are quite different. These stanzas are in the seven-line form
known as rime royal. The lines are in iambic pentameter, with the rhyme scheme ababbcc. The
contrast is striking, both visually and aurally, and it is impossible not to notice the movement
between stanzas focused on Thetis’s innocent expectations and those focused on the harsh
realities depicted on the shield."
In Homer's "Iliad" war although destructive had a certain grandeur and larger than life appeal.
On the contrary, Auden's three (a platoon of soldiers going out to battle, three men being
executed, and "a ragged urchin aimless and alone") images cynically describe the
meaninglessness and futility of modern day warfare and life in general "where promises were
[not] kept."