"The Shield of Achilles" is a poem by W. H. Auden first published in 1952.

The Shield of Achilles is also the title poem of a collection of poems by Auden, published in 1955. The poem is Auden's response to the detailed description in Homer's epic poem the Iliad of the shield borne by the hero Achilles, illustrated with scenes from daily life.Auden's poem is written in two different stanza forms, one form with shorter lines, the other with longer lines. The stanzas with shorter lines describe the making of the shield by the god Hephaestus, and report the scenes that Achilles'mother, the Thetis, expects to find on the shield and which Hephaestus, in Auden's version, does not make. Thetis expects to find scenes of happiness and peace like those described by Homer. In The Shield of Achilles we encounter two worlds: the classical world and the modern world. Thetis, the goddess mother of Achilles, Hephaestus and Achilles represent the classical world. The new shield made by the god Hephaestus symbolizes a modern world that is afflicted with war, violence and dangerous crimes. Though Thetis is a mythic figure belonging to the Greek mythology, Auden exploits her for his own poetic purpose of delineating a fractured modern world. In the original mythology in Homers The Iliad, Thetis is not found to be lamenting for those who would die in the Trojan War. She is more worried about her sons safety and his premature death- a death that is doomed by God. But here she is worried about the safety of mankind. Auden has transformed Thetis into a different figure that stands for the modern conscience raising its voice against all war and blood shedding. Here, Thetis has become the spokeswoman for the poet himself. Her position against the war gives overtone for Audens strong stance against all the violence on humanity. The poem is built on a striking contrast between a mythic world, admirable and appealing and a modern world, repulsive and abhorrent. If Auden described a modern world straightforwardly in exclusion of a mythic world, the picture of that world would not seem that much realistic and effective as it is now. Auden, however, has depicted the modern world on the backdrop of a classical world. In the original shield of Homers Iliad there are scenes of a world that is wonderful and magnificent. The shield portrays a mighty Greek civilization that is based on industry, mutual love, success, happiness and ethical concerns.In Audens version of the shield made by Hephaestus, the mighty Greek world is hopelessly absent being replaced by a reverse of that world- a world that is stripped of all the magnificence and grandeur. Audens use of the imagery is also important that contributes to making a detachment between the two worlds. Some instances of Audens images for the modern world are: An artificial wilderness, a sky like lead, a weed-choked field. The opening two lines of the second stanza illustrate the desert-like universe, frightening and terrible: A plain without a feature, bare and brown, No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood, The use of mythological personae is central in Audens poem. The modernist poet exploits the mythic figures to serve their own purpose of depicting a debased modern world. . In all the four short-line-stanzas, Thetis expects a peaceful and idyllic world only to be disillusioned and frustrated not to find that world. For instance, in the opening stanza, her expectations are the inscription of the scenes of vine and olive trees, well governed cities and ships upon untamed seas. To her shock and horror, she encounters an antithesis to those scenes: An artificial wilderness And a sky like lead.

In The Shield of Achilles, Thetiss worry about the bleak and desolate future of the world reflects Audens vison of the times and its politics. Her concerns are wholly ethical and moral as is asserted by Paul Hendon in The Poetry of W. H. Auden: Her mind does not go beyond the dichotomy of the pretty and the ugly; she must be shocked into moral awareness. Her demands are simple and absolute. (P. 140) So Thetis in the poem might function as a mouthpiece of the poet himself. The poet criticizes the modern world through the use of Thetiss figure. However, Thetis is much more complex character. In the last stanza, Thetis is horrified to see the accomplished shield: Thetis of the shining breast Cried out in dismay At what god had wrought To please her son Thetiss expectations are paradoxical and self-contradictory: she has come to the master blacksmith Hephaestus to make a shield (to be used in the war) for her sons protection; at the same time she expects scenes of peace and happiness to be engraved on the shield. Audens ethical issues, especially his concern for humanity, occupy the prime place. Even in the midst of relishing at myths and rituals, he never forgets the cry of humanity. As Edward Mendelson puts the issue in his The European Auden: As Auden withdrew into the timeless world of ritual and myth, his ethical and political vision was undimmed: while celebrating rituals, he remembers that some are abominable, that the Crucified has no wish for butchery to appease Him. In poem, Thetis stands for a demanding audience with her expectations to see an ideal world to be inscribed on the shield, while Hephaestus plays the role of a dispassionate artist who has little concerns for the fractured modern world. At the same time, the artist is- it seems -doomed to portray the real world to the utter shock and puzzlement of their audience (Thetis). And the shield functions as a timeless work of art. Both Thetis (as audience) and Hephaestus (as artist) are people who can not save the world from devastation. Another aspect linked with the poets treatment of myth is the adding of the sense of inevitability-what is to happen, will happen; none or nothing can prevent it from happening. Auden has drawn upon Greek concept of fatalism. In the characterization of the Achilles, we have the manifestation of this theme. So Achilles cannot help fighting, nor can he escape the predestination ordained by God; likewise, his mother cannot but appeal to Hephaestus to make her son a set of armour. At the same time, it so happens that despite her feelings of protest against the probable violence and her feelings of compassion for the distressed and the victimized, she cannot, in practical sense, help those ones. Many of W.B. Yeatss poems deal with myths and the sense of fatalism is also present here; for example, his The Second Coming depicts a world - though horrifying is still bound to come. . In Paul Hendons words: The scene Thetis describes is one in which by long literary and iconographic tradition aesthetic qualities signify spiritual ones. Thetis wants transcendent play, human activities elevated to a sublime spirituality. (P. 141) . The scene as described by Auden in the following lucid language is also a fine example of modernist Waste Land lacking any aspect of spirituality: A plain without a feature, bare and brown, No blade of grass, no sign of

neighborhood, Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down, (Line 9-11)

The contrast between the physical and the spiritual is also at the centre in the treatment of myths. Plainly speaking, the mythic world manifests the spiritual and the modern world manifests the physical. Beset with all troubles and traumas, the modern man seeks a shelter in the classical mythic world, a consolation that he is in dire need of. Modern men are found to be striving for meaning in a meaningless and absurd world To conclude, Audens treatment of myths serves a good number of functions. The Shield of Achilles has displayed multiple thematic issues of modernism through the effective treatment of myths. It has eventually become a classic example of ekphrasis poem in modernism.