Earlier this week, my AP Literature did a practice test. The poem sampled for the test was a work by W. H. Auden called The Shield of Achilles. I really enjoyed the poem and decided to review it!
The Shield of Achilles
She looked over his shoulder
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.
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, stood
An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.
Out of the air a voice without a face
Proved 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 shoulder
For ritual pieties,
White flower-garlanded heifers,
Libation and sacrifice,
But there on the shining metal
Where the altar should have been,
She saw by his flickering forge-light
Quite another scene.
Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot
Where bored officials lounged (one cracked a joke)
And sentries sweated for the day was hot:
A crowd of ordinary decent folk
Watched 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, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were small
And 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 shoulder
For athletes at their games,
Men and women in a dance
Moving their sweet limbs
Quick, quick, to music,
But there on the shining shield
His hands had set no dancing-floor
But 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 breasts
Cried out in dismay
At what the god had wrought
To please her son, the strong
Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
Who would not live long.
The poem describes Thetis, mother of Achilles, looking over the shoulder of Haphaestos, the death god, as he forges Achilles' shield. Thetis expects to see images of gods or politicians or atheletes, or nature, but instead she sees a scene of war and destruction. Between the stanzas of Thetis's revelation, we see the sort of warfare and destruction that in the end, is depicted on Achilles shield. The poem mentions vacant fields and marching soldiers commanded by some unseen figure, people being executed while others watch motionless, and a man that knows only a world without empathy.
One thing I really enjoyed about this poem was the back and forth of the narrative. We go from a very specific scene taking place during a specific even to a vague scene that could really be describing any major war in time. Because of Thetis' point of view, we get a very personal look at the effects of the images of war and descructiion. While we also get the detachment from the more vague scenes that truly portrays. the feeling of mechanized, totalitarian warfare where the feeling of individual are inconsequential.
Auden really blends these two perspectives in an interesting way, that may be hard to catch at first. I suggest reading the poem a few times to really understand the message.
Another great thing about this poem is that Auden wrote specifically so that it would be relatable to all time periods. The scenes of battle are not specific to one particular war, but could be describing any human conflict throughout history. The fact that the words are still so relevant today, though it was written sixty years ago shows how well-structured the poem is.
The final irony at the end of the poem is that these scenes of battle that Achilles was so eager to have on his shield are eventually how he looses his life: in war.
This poem is beautifully written and reveals some really important social commentary along with some cool Greek mythology.
