French Literature Reviews - 2026

Winged Words: Flight in Poetry and History
Comparative and World Literature

Piero BOITANI, Winged Words: Flight in Poetry and History, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2007, 240 p.
ISBN-10: 0-226-06561-8

SUMMARY

Flight has always fascinated human minds, but until a century ago it remained a dream—the exclusive domain of birds, gods, and mythological heroes. From the myths of the ancients to the poetry of Pindar and Yeats, Winged Words traces the imprint of the human impulse to fly from premodern times to the age of terrorism in both literature and history.

Piero Boitani begins his analysis with an account of the way the myths of Pegasus and Icarus have persisted from classical to twentieth-century politics and literature. He then takes up the figure of Hermes; the roles of halcyons and eagles in classical, biblical, and later literatures; and literary response to Pieter Brueghel’s The Fall of Icarus. Honing in on modern figures and concerns, Boitani also offers a fascinating discussion of author-pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and concludes with a meditation on the flight of the hijacked airliners on 9/11. Throughout, Winged Words brings a remarkable range of men of action, politicians, theologians, writers, and artists into dialogue with each other: Shakespeare with T. S. Eliot, Horace with Ovid, Leonardo with Milton, Leopardi with Mallarmé, Saint-Exupéry with Faulkner and Rilke, and the Ulysses of Homer with the Ulysses of Dante. Ultimately, by showing how writers and fliers have looked to the ancients for inspiration, Boitani testifies to the modern relevance of poetry and the classics.

The motif of flight has long occupied a central place in the Western literary imagination, serving as a powerful metaphor for transcendence, ambition, and mortal limitation. From classical epic and lyric verse to early modern art and twentieth-century literature, writers and artists have continually returned to figures of ascension and falling to make sense of human aspiration. This tradition engages deeply with mythological exemplars such as Icarus, Pegasus, and Hermes, whose stories provide a vocabulary for exploring the boundaries between the earthly and the divine. By examining these recurring motifs across different epochs, scholarship in comparative literature often illuminates how ancient narratives continue to shape modern aesthetic and political expression.

Readers interested in the intersections between classical mythology, modern literature, and historical consciousness may find this exploration of the human desire for flight relevant. Piero Boitani traces the imprint of the human impulse to fly from premodern times to the age of terrorism in both literature and history. The volume discusses myths of Pegasus and Icarus, the figure of Hermes, roles of halcyons and eagles, and author-pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, bringing various writers, artists, politicians, and theologians into dialogue across centuries.