icarus's Flight

Examine the questions in lines 1–2. What is the purpose of these questions in the poem? What do they show about Dobyns’s beliefs about Icarus?

"What else could the boy have done? Wasn’t

flight both an escape and a great uplifting?"

Tags

CCSS.RL.7.10

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.7.5

CCSS.RL.8.10

CCSS.RL.8.5

Look at the last stanza in “Icarus’s Flight.” What tone is conveyed here, and how does the poet achieve it?

"that neither shepherd nor farmer with his plow

watched him fall? He now had his answer,

laws to uphold him in his downward plunge.

Cushion enough for what he wanted."

Tags

CCSS.RL.7.10

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.7.5

CCSS.RL.6.4

CCSS.RL.8.4

In poems, the speaker is the voice that expresses feelings and emotions. The speaker in “Icarus’s Flight” uses the poem to show opinions of Icarus. What do lines 10–11 show about the speaker’s attitude towards Icarus?

"He flew just far enough. He flew precisely

to the point of wisdom"

Tags

CCSS.RL.7.10

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.7.5

CCSS.RL.8.10

CCSS.RL.6.4

What possible meanings could the line " Would it

have been better to flutter ignorantly

from petal to petal within some garden

forever" have?

Tags

CCSS.RL.7.10

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.7.5

CCSS.RL.8.10

CCSS.RL.8.5