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Icarus

Literary Character
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A youth who falls into the sea after flying too near the sun with waxen wings.

Detailed Definition
Icarus is the tragic son of Daedalus in Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Escaping imprisonment, he ignores his father’s warning and rises toward the sun, causing the wax joining his wings to melt. His brief flight has become a compact emblem of youthful ambition, disobedience, artistic invention, and the danger of excess. Poets may treat him as a reckless failure or as a figure of magnificent aspiration whose fall gives lasting meaning to his attempt.
Example
Example in poetry:
Ovid's Metamorphoses tells how Icarus flies with wax and feathers and falls after soaring too near the sun; A poet may use Icarus as a warning against reckless ambition and overconfidence; A poem can reinterpret Icarus as a brave experimenter punished for reaching beyond inherited limits; An Icarus image may symbolize artistic risk, technological hubris, or the brief blaze of a dream before its collapse
Additional Notes
Icarus escapes Crete with his father, Daedalus, using wings made with feathers and wax, but flies too close to the sun and falls when the wax melts. The myth is commonly used as a warning against reckless ambition, disobedience, and overconfidence. Modern poetry may complicate that lesson by presenting Icarus as a symbol of curiosity, freedom, artistic risk, or the cost of daring to exceed human limits.
Other Meanings of “Icarus”
Also Known As
Ikaros
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