Nothing Gold Can Stay 'And Icarus'

As humans, throughout our lifetime we will be faced with a moment of life altering decisions, these decisions we make will impact how we live our life. As time passes and we grow older, closer to death, it is the question of have we preserved our gold throughout the years. Poet Robert Frost challenges the act of keeping our gold in his deceptively simple poems “Nothing Gold Can Stay” and poet Edward Field’s “Icarus” demonstrates a character dealing with the loss of their gold. In these poems Frost and Field use imagery, diction, and allusion convey that these two poems compliments and contrast each other. The Robert Frost was a remarkable poet that people today still read his work, his poems were exceptional and always left readers seeing

Field’s use of allusion is the poem, the character of Icarus is actually a historical Greek story about how Icarus was once a Greek God and has fallen. The poem is more than a Greek tale, it extends to Icarus surviving his fall and how he regrets the decision he made when he was once a god. Throughout the poem it is well shown that Icarus drowns himself in self-pity wishing he had died rather than live the life he lives now. Additionally, Field creates a modern day setting using modern diction, “What was he doing aging in a suburb?” (18) and, “But now rides commuter trains” (28), with modern diction Field deems the tale of Icarus no longer being a myth, but rather an everyday story life. This supports the idea of Icarus life being unsatisfying and in a bigger that everyday life is boring and humdrum. Field uses imagery to generate a dull and dark contemporary image, he does that in the poem when he says “Only the feathers floating around the hat” (1), “Never dreaming that the gray, respectable suit” (11) and, “And nightly Icarus probes his wound” (21), Field’s use of weary imagery creates a world that is jaded and where one would not want to experience, yet, Icarus is caught in its grasp of failure and becomes obsessive of it. Field excellently demonstrates the aftermath of losing one’s beauty, and youthful spirit, he does this using poetic