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“The Shield of Achilles” Introduction
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“The Shield of Achilles” is one of W. H. Auden best-known poems and appears in his 1955 collection of the same name. The poem reimagines a scene from the ancient Greek epic The Iliad in which the goddess Thetis watches Hephaestos (god of blacksmiths and metalworking, among other things) craft armor for her son, Achilles (of Trojan War fame). Thetis expects Hephaestos to forge a beautiful shield filled with romantic ornamentation that glorifies war and battle, as is the case in the original myth. In the poem, however, Thetis finds only images of bleak desolation and horror upon the shield. Written in the decade after World War II, the poem contains references to the events and technologies of 20th-century conflicts and explores the relationship between war and modern society. The collection in which it was published earned Auden a National Book Award.
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“The Shield of Achilles” Summary
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The goddess Thetis watched as Hephaestos made armor for her son, Achilles. Thetis expected the armor's surface to feature images of lush greenery, dignified societies, and ships navigating free, wild waters. Instead, Hephaestos forged onto the shining shield the image of a man-made wasteland and a gray, heavy sky.
This land was a totally empty, brown plain without any grass nor any sign of community. There was no food at all and no place to rest. Still, there was a hazy throng of soldiers gathered on this barren landscape. There were a ton of them, all lined up and expressionless as they waited for their orders.
The voice of some unknown figure filled the air and listed data points as justification for the soldiers going off to battle. The voice was stark and flat, as emotionless as the landscape itself. The voice didn't make anyone more excited or eager for battle, but there was no further discussion. One after the other, the soldiers filed out, kicking up dust in their wake. They held on to the reasoning behind their orders, even though this ultimately led them to despair.
Thetis kept watching Hephaestos, expecting him to forge beautiful images of religious ceremonies, with cows draped in flowers and offerings to the gods. However, in the spot where Thetis expected to see the picture of an altar on the shining shield, the light from Hephaestos's forge illuminated a very different scene.
Barbed wire surrounded a random place where bored officers lazed about. Some even made jokes, while the guards were sweating in the heat. Meanwhile, a group of average, reasonable townspeople looked on silently while three pale individuals were shackled to stakes that were then driven into the ground.
These three lives—with all their beauty and significance, all that they held dear—were equal to the lives of everyone else. However, their fate was now out of their control. They were powerless and had no hope that anyone would help them, and indeed no one did. Their captors simply did what captors do, and all that the worst among the crowd could hope for was that the victims would feel shame. The three figures were stripped of their dignity and humanity before they physically died.
Thetis kept watching as Hephaestos worked. She looked for images of athletes competing while men and women danced, swiftly swaying their beautiful bodies along to music. But in place of a dance floor, Hephaestos forged a field utterly overrun with weeds, which strangled any vegetation.
An unkempt, mischief-making boy strolled around that empty field. He tried to hit a bird with a rock, but although he aimed accurately, the bird was able to fly out of harm’s way. For this young boy, it was just an accepted part of life that girls get sexually abused and that boys physically harm one another. He was unaware of any place where people actually kept their promises or were sensitive to the suffering of others.
Without saying anything, the stern metalworker Hephaestos staggered away. Thetis, whose chest shone like the shield, let out a distressed cry upon seeing what he had created for her son, Achilles. She saw that although Achilles was a strong, hardened killer, he would soon die.
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“The Shield of Achilles” Themes
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The Horrors of War
The poem is based on a story from The Iliad, in which the goddess Thetis asks Hephaestos, god of blacksmiths and craftspeople, to make new armor for her son, the great Greek warrior Achilles. In the original myth, Hephaestos forges Achilles a beautifully intricate shield that places scenes of battle alongside those of everyday life and the natural world—with the implication being that war is something noble and glorious.
Auden’s retelling has a very different take on war. Thetis anticipates that such magnificent imagery will adorn the shield, but instead finds a bleak landscape utterly ravaged by war (specifically, the poem implies, by World War II). Rather than glorifying war, then, the poem emphasizes the desolation and horror that it inevitably leaves in its wake.
At first, Thetis looks for the lush scenery depicted on the shield in The Iliad—for images of “vines and olive trees,” an orderly city, the wild ocean. She then searches for athletes competing, dancers “moving … to music,” and pious citizens engaged in ceremonies and celebration. In short, she anticipates that scenes of battle will appear alongside “well-governed cities”—a righteous society whose preservation and advancement justifies war.
Yet none of these scenes appear. Instead, the field that Thetis sees on the shield is a desolate “wilderness,” a land “without a feature, bare and brown.” The field is so barren that it cannot provide even the simplest resources necessary to sustain life; there's “nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down.”
The field is also filled with a mass of blank-faced soldiers, directly connecting its devastation to the destructive power of war. That is, the poem indicates that war is to blame for the inhospitable wasteland that Thetis sees before her, because war ravages the joys and beauty of the world. The shield—a tool of war—now reflects that truth.
These descriptions of a barren landscape are also interspersed with evidence of personal suffering, further dispelling any romantic notions of wartime heroism. For instance, the soldiers who file off to war ultimately experience “grief” as a result of their orders. They're also not moved by passion or moral conviction, but rather by dry "statistics" delivered by some distant commander—making their suffering and death seem all the more cruel and arbitrary.
The poem’s final stanza then reveals that “the strong / Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles” will also meet his death. This characterization of Achilles emphasizes that war does not spare even the most powerful and determined of soldiers. This reality pains Thetis, who “crie[s] out in dismay.” The poem thus implies that violent conflict has the power to deeply wound even those who are not directly involved. Ultimately, then, the poem emphasizes that war brings about immense devastation on scales both broad and intimate. And while the stark differences between the ancient and modern shields might seem to suggest that modern warfare is more harmful than ancient conflicts, the speaker subtly implies that war has always been a part of human life, and that it has always been horrific.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 7-8
- Lines 9-22
- Lines 31-37
- Lines 38-44
- Line 52
- Lines 60-67
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Modern Apathy Towards Violence
Although it ostensibly addresses an ancient conflict, the poem contains frequent allusions to 20th-century warfare, particularly the events of World War II. In these scenes, the figures who perpetrate and witness violence are highly apathetic—that is, they don't seem to show any concern for or response to the horrors before them. The speaker contrasts this indifference with the purpose and emotion that infuses The Iliad’s discussion of war. In doing so, the speaker suggests that the gradual normalization of war as a fact of life leads to complicity in violence.
The shield’s depiction of modern warfare is one driven by collective resignation towards violence. For example, the second stanza describes “a million eyes, a million boots”—the mass of soldiers indicating an allusion to a world war—and thus reduces soldiers to their parts; the soldiers are not seen as individual human beings but as “an unintelligible multitude.” Their lives are devalued, becoming cogs in a larger war machine—which is later contrasted against Thetis’s emotional upheaval about the potential loss of her son.
Further, the soldiers wait “without expression” and accept that their impetus for killing is a matter of “statistics”—an impersonal calculation rather than an imminent threat or principled reaction to injustice. Later, the speaker says, “Barbed wire enclosed an arbitrary spot,” alluding the concentration camps of the Holocaust. The word “arbitrary” denotes a lack of reason, and the officers are described as “bored” and they “lounge” around, cracking jokes while overseeing mass torture. As such, those who perpetuate modern violence are depicted as emotionally disconnected from their task.
The bystanders are also bitterly resigned. A group that watches as three people are tormented “neither moved nor spoke” and are considered “ordinary decent folk.” These onlookers feel no obligation to intervene, and, tellingly, their inaction does not impact their standing as reasonable, acceptable members of society. In this way, the poem equates modern conflicts and military technology with increased apathy towards the suffering of others. Further, this indifference stems from the “ordinary” nature of modern violence—it is so prolific that human suffering is taken for granted as an inevitable fact of life.
It's possible that the poem references the original shield of Achilles to suggest that conflict was not always so devoid of meaning and emotion. Still, the speaker emphasizes its presence throughout human history, suggesting that war has always been seen as an integral facet of civilization. The poem can thus be interpreted as a warning that the gradual normalization of this reality enables mass complicity in meaningless violence.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 7-8
- Lines 12-22
- Lines 23-37
- Lines 38-44
- Lines 45-59
- Lines 62-67
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The Limitations of Art
In The Iliad, Achilles’s shield is an ornate work of art that depicts war as an integral part of a desirable society. It is as much a decoration as a tool, and its intricate imagery is meant to be beautiful. This poem, however, imagines what the shield would look like if its aesthetic concerns were stripped away, leaving behind candid images of war’s actual impact. The speaker contrasts the spectacular expectations of war that the original shield creates with war's grim realities in order to question the legitimacy of art that takes war as its subject. That is, the poem seems to wonder whether any art concerned with aesthetics, with being beautiful, can fully capture the truth of something as horrific as war.
The elaborate, idealized scenes of life in wartime that fill the original shield create a romantic image of war. For instance, Thetis expects that Hephaestos will forge “ships upon untamed seas” and “athletes at their games.” Appearing alongside scenes of war, these portraits of bravery and adventure promote battle as a valorous and exhilarating experience. Plus, the cities the soldiers protect are “marble” and “well-governed.” Such stately descriptors dignify their task.
The original shield is also full of naturalistic beauty—lush vegetation, “white flower-garlanded heifers,” and dancers “moving their sweet limbs.” This visually striking and idealized backdrop for violence implicitly presents war as an important part of a utopian society. And throughout the poem, the speaker describes the captivating imagery that covers the original shield in vivid detail. In doing so, the speaker signals that the shield glorifies war by appealing to the audience’s aesthetic sensibilities.
On the other hand, the speaker’s modern reinterpretation of the shield is characterized by austerity and desolation. The shield’s scenery is barren and “without a feature.” In fact, the speaker lists all the sustenance that isn’t present on the shield: “No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood, / Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down.” When structures finally appear, they are no less bleak—concentration camps surrounded by barbed wire.
The figures that occupy these landscapes are similarly lifeless. They are not distinct individuals, but “an unintelligible multitude … without expression.” Rather than valiant warriors engaged in battle, the modern shield features “bored officials” who lie around. The townspeople are not described as pious, active, or dignified, as they are in The Iliad. Instead, they are silent and motionless as they witness mass torture.
In The Iliad, the gleaming shield gives both Thetis and Achilles a sense of great pride and empowerment. But it turns out to be little more than a work of art, failing to protect him from death. Far truer-to-life, the modern shield more closely resembles the eye-opening documentary photography taken during World War II. As a result, Thetis is uncomfortably aware of her son’s fate. The speaker thus suggests that the preconceptions of war’s purpose and impacts as set by Homer are insufficient preparation for the horrific realities of war.
The speaker contrasts an artistic representation of war that prioritizes aesthetics—beauty, appearances—with a retelling that gives a more truthful account of its ugly devastation. In doing so, the speaker warns that art about war can never tell the full story, and that its glamorization of violence can lead to additional suffering. As such, the poem itself can be taken as an example of a more responsible and complete account of war, which implicitly advises the reader against taking its own portrayal as fact.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-67
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Shield of Achilles”
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Lines 1-8
She looked over ...
... sky like lead.Before “The Shield of Achilles” even begins, its title alludes to Homer's famous Greek epic The Iliad. In particular, the poem references Book XVIII, in which the goddess Thetis visits the workshop of Hephaestos, god of craftspeople. Thetis asks Hephaestos to forge new armor for her son, the great warrior Achilles, who will fight on behalf of the Greeks in the Trojan War.
As the poem opens, Thetis is watching Hephaestos forge her son's shield. The poem's setting is thus implied to be Hephaestos's palace, which sits on Mount Olympus, the highest peak in Greece. Of course, none of this information is stated outright; the audience must be reasonably familiar with The Iliad to understand what's happening. In this way, the allusion also establishes cultural kinship between the speaker and the reader at the poem’s outset.
As Thetis watches Hephaestos, she expects that he will decorate her son's shield with the sort of magnificent scenes that adorn the shield in The Iliad. Homer’s original shield places idealized scenes of everyday life and the natural world alongside valiant battles. Accordingly, as Thetis scans the shield’s surface, she searches for beauty and adventure—for rich natural imagery and “untamed” oceans. She envisions the society that Achilles defends as “marble well-governed cities,” suggesting prosperity, order, integrity, and an appreciation of art.
However, what Thetis finds instead is “an artificial wilderness.” Denoting something that is human-made, the “artificial” landscape is a far cry from “untamed seas.” Similarly, the uncultivated “wilderness” on the shield’s surface contrasts with the “vines and olive trees” that she imagines.
The shield also depicts “a sky like lead.” This simile characterizes the environment as dark, heavy, and oppressive. Further, its comparison to a dull, commonplace metal diminishes the glamour implied by “shining metal.” The poem thus subverts Thetis’s expectations of the shield, creating a juxtaposition between Homer’s portrayal of war and the speaker’s modern reinterpretation.
The opening stanza is written in a modified ballad form, following a vaguely iambic (da-DUM) rhythm that generally contains three stressed beats per line (rather than alternating between three and four stresses, as is customary in ballads). Here is a look at the meter of the first two lines:
She looked over his shoulder
For vines and olive trees,The alternating stressed and unstressed syllables create a bouncy rhythm, producing a lighthearted atmosphere. While traditional ballads are made up of quatrains, or four-line stanzas, the first stanza of this poem contains 8 lines. Therefore, it can be seen as two ballad stanzas merged together. Its first quatrain details Thetis’s expectations, while the second describes the modern shield. As such, the modified ballad form reinforces the contrast between these two scenes. The final line of this stanza, however, contains only five syllables:
And a sky like lead.
The succinctness of this line gives the final image an abrupt feel. This effect is heightened by the end-stop that concludes the line, especially given the examples of enjambment that precede it. At the end of many lines within this stanza, enjambment leaves the audience is left wondering what Thetis is looking for, and later, what she finds instead. It therefore creates anticipation, encouraging the audience to read on. Because it allows one line to flow into the next, enjambment produces an accumulation of rhythmic momentum—which then slams into that leaden sky in line 8.
Much like its bouncy rhythm, the rhymes that appear in the opening stanza create a playful mood. For example, end-stops draw attention to the rhyme between “trees” and “seas.” Later, rhyme heightens the reader’s awareness that a grim scene displaces this natural beauty—“lead” appears “instead.” Additional sound play appears in the form of assonance and consonance. For instance, note the repeating long /oh/ sounds in the poem’s first line, as well as the abundance of sibilance and /l/ sounds in this quatrain:
She looked over his shoulder
For vines and olive trees,
Marble well-governed cities
And ships upon untamed seas,The high concentration of similar sounds creates interest and slows the reader down, drawing the audience into the poem.
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Lines 9-15
A plain without ...
... for a sign.
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Lines 16-22
Out of the ...
... else, to grief. -
Lines 23-30
She looked over ...
... Quite another scene. -
Lines 31-37
Barbed wire enclosed ...
... in the ground. -
Lines 38-44
The mass and ...
... their bodies died. -
Lines 45-52
She looked over ...
... a weed-choked field. -
Lines 53-59
A ragged urchin, ...
... because another wept. -
Lines 60-67
The thin-lipped armorer, ...
... not live long.
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“The Shield of Achilles” Symbols
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The Original Shield
The shield of Achilles as it is originally portrayed in Homer’s Iliad is not physically present in this poem. However, it looms as a symbolic counterpart of the speaker's modern reinterpretation of the shield.
Thetis lists features of Homer’s shield, which she describes as dense with images of adventure, natural beauty, and a pious, orderly society. These idealized scenes of everyday life are interspersed with those of glorious battles. The original shield thus comes to embody ancient attitudes about war—namely that it is a necessary part of an honorable civilization.
However, this shield is absent and has been replaced with a modern model that plainly documents the horrifying impacts of war. In this context, the original shield also represents the danger of glorifying war, particularly in works of art. Indeed, despite the shield's beauty, it can't save Achilles from death.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 2-4: “vines and olive trees, / Marble well-governed cities / And ships upon untamed seas”
- Lines 24-26: “ritual pieties, / White flower-garlanded heifers, / Libation and sacrifice”
- Line 28: “the altar”
- Lines 46-49: “athletes at their games, / Men and women in a dance / Moving their sweet limbs / Quick, quick, to music”
- Line 51: “dancing-floor”
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The Modern Shield
In contrast to Homer’s original, the modern shield of Achilles pictures lifeless plains, apathetic bystanders, and violence perpetuated without motive. In other words, its portrayal of war centers death and moral degeneration. As a counterpart of Homer’s original shield, which represents the (perceived) role of war in classical Greece, the modern version represents the grim realities of war. Furthermore, hallmarks of 20th-century warfare—“barbed wire,” “statistics,” “a million boots,”—decorate the modern shield. Therefore, it highlights the horrors of modern warfare in particular.
Where this symbol appears in the poem:- Lines 7-8
- Lines 9-22
- Lines 31-44
- Lines 52-59
- Line 64
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“The Shield of Achilles” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Allusion
The poem's title and events are derived from The Iliad, an ancient Greek epic attributed to Homer. The Iliad follows the finest Greek warrior, Achilles, during the Trojan War. This poem’s title indicates an allusion to Book XVIII in particular. Achilles’s mother, the goddess Thetis, visits the palace of Hephaestos, god of craftspeople, and asks him to forge new armor for her son. He agrees, crafting an ornate, gleaming shield that depicts the heavens, the natural world, and picturesque representations of everyday life in Greece alongside romanticized battle scenes.
Like The Iliad, “The Shield of Achilles” begins in media res—the reader is thrust into a dramatic narrative with little contextualization. The speaker uses the vague pronouns “he” and “she” when referring to Hephaestos and Thetis, only confirming their identities in the final stanza. It is therefore crucial that the audience recognize the poem’s overarching allusion to understand what is taking place.
In addition to creating a sense of cultural kinship between the speaker and the reader, this “barrier to entry” ensures that the poem’s audience will pick up on its thematic meaning. In other words, if a reader is able to identify Thetis and Hephaestos, they understand that the epic is infused with passion, beauty, adventure, and grandeur. Therefore, the allusion to such a well-known and elaborate example of war’s romanticization serves as a stark foil for the speaker’s portrayal of war as bleak and destructive.
Furthermore, the allusion places this poem within a wider literary tradition of reinterpreting ancient stories and applying their themes and styles to later events. As such, it allows the reader to question whether The Iliad and other epics are suitable models for discussing modern wars.
The speaker also alludes to World War II through various anachronisms. World War II was fresh in the minds of Auden’s contemporary audience and its impacts are felt and studied today. It is known as the largest and deadliest war in history. The Holocaust casts a particularly dark shadow over this point in history. The Nazi party’s systematic murder of millions of Jews and other minority groups stunned and horrified the world. The speaker’s allusions specifically point to the “millions” of lives impacted by the war, as well as the concentration camps and other imprisonments erected by the Nazis all over Europe (infamously enclosed by barbed wire, which is mentioned in line 31). By alluding to such a tragic, cruel, and far-reaching conflict, the speaker is able to appeal to the emotions and experiences of a wide audience.
Finally, the crucifixion of Christ is commonly represented by three crosses—one for Jesus and the others for two thieves alongside whom he was hung. The “three pale figures … bound / To three posts” in the poem’s fifth stanza therefore likely allude to the Bible. The casual tone of this scene and the disregard of its onlookers is shocking, given that this story of martyrdom is retold and studied all over the world today. As such, this allusion deepens the existing juxtaposition between violence and apathy, suggesting that such indifference is inappropriate. Moreover, the allusion highlights that individual victims become anonymized in times of war—reduced to “statistics.” Finally, the biblical allusion creates subtle (Christian) religious undertones. Within the poem, a lack of faith is coupled with moral failings, perhaps suggesting that religion has the power to correct the ethical degeneration of society.
The speaker alludes to very well-known instances of violence, preventing the poem’s message from becoming too obscured. All of the above allusions reference different locations and time periods, demonstrating that violent conflict has always been part of human civilization. Their commingling also invites the reader to compare the events of these conflicts, as well as their artistic portrayal and contemporary attitudes towards them.
Where allusion appears in the poem:- Lines 1-8
- Line 14
- Lines 23-30
- Lines 31-37
- Lines 38-49
- Lines 60-67
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Anachronism
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Assonance
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Consonance
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End-Stopped Line
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Enjambment
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Juxtaposition
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Metaphor
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Repetition
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Alliteration
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Simile
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“The Shield of Achilles” Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- She looked over his shoulder
- Unintelligible
- Multitude
- Enduring
- Pieties
- Libation
- Forge-light
- Abitrary
- Sentries
- Urchin
- Loitered
- Axioms
- Thin-lipped
- Armorer
- Hephaestos
- Thetis
- Wrought
- Iron-hearted
- Achilles
She looked over his shoulder-
(Location in poem: Line 1: “She looked over his shoulder”; Line 23: “She looked over his shoulder”; Line 45: “She looked over his shoulder”)
This is an allusion to Book XVIII of The Iliad, an ancient Greek epic poem attributed to Homer. The goddess Thetis visits the palace of Hephaestos, god of metalworking, and tells him about the struggles of her son, Achilles. Achilles had refused to fight in the Trojan War due to a disagreement with the commander of the Greek forces. Achilles’s dear companion, Patroclus, took up his armor and fought in his place. But Patroclus was killed in battle and the armor was stolen. Overcome with grief and rage, Achilles has vowed to avenge his death. Hephaestos agrees to forge new armor for Thetis, who watches as he emblazons a spectacular shield. In The Iliad, the shield is dense with magnificent, idealized scenes of war and everyday life. In this poem, the speaker reimagines what the shield might look like if it plainly reflected the impacts of modern conflicts, particularly World War II.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Shield of Achilles”
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Form
This poem employs two traditional poetic forms that alternate thrghout its nine stanzas: the ballad and rhyme royal. From stanza to stanza, the speaker switches between them in the following pattern:
- Ballad
- Rhyme royal
- Rhyme royal
- Ballad
- Rhyme royal
- Rhyme royal
- Ballad
- Rhyme royal
- Ballad
The ballad form is known for its flexibility. In this poem, each ballad stanza eight lines, as if two traditional, four-line ballad stanzas (a.k.a. quatrains) have been merged. This effect is particularly apparent in stanza 1, where the syntax and (ABCB DEFE) rhyme scheme reinforce this structure:
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.The initial quatrain describes what Thetis expects to see on the shield’s surface. It is met with a “but” statement in the fifth line (essentially the start of the second quatrain), which makes clear that the pleasant imagery she seeks is nowhere to be found. This pattern is repeated later in the poem, its two-part structure reinforcing the disparity between what Thetis anticipates and what she finds.
Adhering to tradition, each rhyme royal consists of seven lines of iambic pentameter in an ABABBCC rhyme scheme. Take stanza 2:
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.As is the case in the poem’s ballad stanzas, each rhyme royal stanza is made up of one complete sentence, whose punctuation and main structural units generally coincide with line breaks. This format is orderly and easy to follow. As such, the speaker comes across and straightforward and plain-spoken, the detached tone matching the apathy of the figures on the shield.
Furthermore, the ballad stanzas recount the glorious imagery of Homer’s Iliad, while the rhyme royals detail the horrors that the shield actually depicts. In other words, the rhyme royals respond to the ballad stanzas, challenging the expectations they lay out regarding how war should be portrayed. Therefore, the fluctuations between the two poetic forms highlight the gap between how war is often depicted and its true impacts.
Finally, both the ballad form and the rhyme royal have their roots in the (oral) storytelling tradition. Because they are easy to remember, ballads were originally used to pass along songs and stories. Geoffrey Chaucer originated the rhyme royal in Troilus and Criseyde, an epic set during the Trojan War. Plus, Greek myths such as those referenced in the Iliad were passed down orally long before Homer and others recorded them.
By creating a dialogue between these two particular forms in the context of The Iliad, the speaker places “The Shield of Achilles” within a wider storytelling lineage. This choice emphasizes the speaker’s concern with the moral implications of art as a means to transmit cultural history, especially that which concerns violence.
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Meter
This poem's meter is inconsistent, though it often falls into an iambic (unstressed-stressed) pattern. Because “The Shield of Achilles” is repetitive in both structure and narrative, variations in rhythm keep the poem from becoming too monotonous.
Still, the speaker sticks closely to trimeter, or three stresses per line, and tetrameter, four stresses per line, in the poem's ballad stanzas, as is typical for the form. The rhyme royal stanzas, by contrast, often fall into pentameter, or five stresses per line.
Here is the second half of stanza 1, where the meter is not perfectly consistent but does generally have the expected three to four stresses per line of a ballad stanza:
But there on the shining metal
His hands had put instead
An artificial wilderness
And a sky like lead.And here is a bit of stanza 2, a rhyme royal stanza, which has about five stresses in its lines (the first two lines here are actually perfect iambic pentameter, as is typical of rhyme royal):
A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,Such regularity is consistent with the speaker’s straightforward language and unemotional tone. But it is at odds with the turmoil that the speaker describes, highlighting the incongruity of human apathy during times of mass suffering.
The last line of each ballad stanza is short, with only five syllables, and a somewhat irregular meter. About this point in each stanza, the narrative takes a dark turn and the abruptness of the final line increases its impact. For example, here is a look at the conclusion of stanza 7 (lines 51-52):
His hands had set no dancing-floor
But a weed-choked field.The metrical regularity and additional iamb in line 51 ("His hands") build momentum and make the following line come across as particularly terse. The sing-song rhythm also exaggerates the three stresses that fall on "weed-choked field," which heighten its forcefulness and intensity. Such sudden shifts in meter enact the surprise that Thetis feels upon seeing a shield that is so different from what she had expected. As such, the poem's rhythms contribute to the discord between war's popular, romantic portrayal and its devastating consequences.
Similar effects occur elsewhere in the poem to highlight important images and dramatize the speaker's harsh tone. Stanza 5, for instance, opens with "barbed wire," which receives two stresses, and ends in lines 36-37 with:
As three pale figures were led forth and bound
To three posts driven upright in the ground.These concentrated groups of stressed syllables draw out the tragic scene and give its description rhythmic vigor.
In some places, the poem's meter mirrors its action, as when the troops file out in lines 21-22 in the third stanza:
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief.The soldiers' plod feels particularly orderly and obedient due to the consistent iambic rhythm. It repeats as the reader traces their trek across three lines, which look like "columns" on the page. The troops ultimately meet their destination—"grief"—and the stanza jolts to a stop. The meter's imitation of the soldiers' journey drives home the cause and effect at play—the soldier's passive compliance with their orders puts them on a steady path towards devastation.
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Rhyme Scheme
"The Shield of Achilles" uses two different rhyme schemes. Stanzas written in ballad form generally follow an ABCB DEFE pattern (though in this poem, the B sounds in lines 2 and 4 of the ballad stanzas do not always rhyme in these stanzas within this poem). Such is the case in the first stanza, where none of the first four lines rhyme, but the 6th and 8th lines (the E sounds) do:
But there on the shining metal D
His hands had put instead E
An artificial wilderness F
And a sky like lead. EThe rhyme royal stanzas of the poem, in contrast, always follow the normal rhyme royal scheme of ABABBCC. For example, here is stanza 3, a rhyme royal stanza:
Out of the air a voice without a face A
Proved by statistics that some cause was just B
In tones as dry and level as the place: A
No one was cheered and nothing was discussed; B
Column by column in a cloud of dust B
They marched away enduring a belief C
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief. CIn general, the consistency and abundance of rhyme makes the poem more memorable. Rhyme also creates a musical quality that contrasts with the dispassion and violence that the speaker describes. As such, the poem’s use of rhyme magnifies existing juxtapositions—between tragedy and the figures' carefree attitude as well as between Homer’s original shield and the speaker’s modern interpretation.
The speaker also uses rhyme to emphasize important images and ideas, such as in the opening to stanza 6 (a rhyme royal stanza):
The mass and majesty of this world, all
That carries weight and always weighs the same
Lay in the hands of others; they were smallHere, rhyme underscores how much the victims have to lose and how little power they have, increasing awareness of the scene’s injustice. Similarly, rhyme can reinforce the connection between two or more words and the ideas they represent. For instance, the soldiers hang onto a thinly-substantiated “belief” that the violence they perpetrate is justified, which ultimately results in “grief.” In stanza 1, the rhyme between “trees” and “seas” links the picturesque natural imagery that Thetis imagines, which is a counterpoint to the “sky like lead” that she finds “instead.”
Rhyme can also create unexpected connections, like that between Achilles’s strength and his death:
… the strong
Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles
Who would not live long.In this case, rhyme stresses the speaker’s message that war is universally devastating—even for the fiercest warriors.
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“The Shield of Achilles” Speaker
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The speaker of "The Shield of Achilles" is an omniscient narrator who observes and relates the poem's events. An anonymous commentator, the speaker reveals no personal biographical information. As this poem retells a scene from The Iliad, the speaker might be seen as an alternate narrator of Homer's epic, who is also omniscient but has a far more romantic view of war.
Indeed, the speaker invokes the magnificent imagery of the original shield and explicitly rejects it in favor of a much bleaker landscape. Plus, the speaker generally uses plain language and straightforward sentence structures. This approach implies disapproval of flowery, glorious representations of war in art. The speaker also uses a great deal of negation—“no blade of grass,” “no one was cheered,” “neither moved nor spoke,” etc. As a result, the speaker comes across as oppositional and pessimistic about the role of war in society.
However, the speaker is not involved in the poem's events and never voices an opinion outright. In fact, the speaker exhibits a conspicuous lack of emotion or connection to the scenes described. For example, a horde who witnesses mass torture without intervening is called "a crowd of ordinary decent folk." Rather than judging the figures who appear within the poem, the speaker reports their actions in a matter-of-fact manner. In other words, the speaker's narration does not directly attempt to make change, opting for a more resigned and fatalistic account.
In this way, the speaker becomes a docile, dispassionate bystander, much like those on the shield. The speaker's own detached observations of violence and cruelty drive home a wider message: war is destructive—plain and simple—and people have become apathetic to that fact.
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“The Shield of Achilles” Setting
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“The Shield of Achilles” reimagines one book of The Iliad, which is set during the Trojan War (about the 12th-13th century BCE). The scene at hand takes place the palace of Hephaestos on Mount Olympus, the highest peak in Greece and home of the gods according to Greek mythology.
That said, the poem contains no references to the physical setting. Instead, the speaker describes the shield that Haephestos forges in great detail. A destitute wasteland, the backdrop for the shield's imagery diverges from—and openly rejects—popular accounts of ancient Greece. In fact, the speaker references 20th-century events and technologies, such as "statistics," "barbed wire" and the Holocaust.
However, the speaker repeatedly grounds the audience in the present moment, reminding readers that Thetis is watching Haephestos "over his shoulder." Plus, the poem both begins and ends in his workshop, so the setting never actually changes. Instead, the amalgamation of ancient and modern identifies war as a constant throughout human history. By creating this thread of continuity, the speaker suggests that modern conflicts (and attitudes towards them) stem from their ancient counterparts.
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Literary and Historical Context of “The Shield of Achilles”
Literary Context
First published in 1952, “The Shield of Achilles” serves as the title poem of Auden’s 1955 poetry collection, which earned a National Book Award the following year. This poem is inspired by Homeric epic The Iliad, one of the earliest surviving examples of Western literature. The Iliad chronicles the events of the Trojan War, tracing the impacts of a feud between the great warrior Achilles and Agamemnon, leader of the Greek forces.
The epic presents a highly romanticized vision of war—one rife with adventure, thrills, and divine intervention, and whose warriors are heroic, loyal, and passionately vengeful. Because it is among the most famous works of literature, the stories, style, and themes of The Iliad have permeated lots of art and culture. But the speaker warns against blanketing modern conflicts with this model, which is ultimately a work of art based on myth. This poem serves as a counterpoint to such glorification of war and puts forth a more realistic—and far bleaker—alternative.
Auden was of course also influenced by his own time. A series of movements broadly known as Modernism had reshaped the literary world during the early 20th century. Generally speaking, Modernist poets wrote highly symbolic and imagistic work, usually in free verse or experimental poetic forms (such as Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro”). Fragmented narratives became popular, as did themes exploring societal decay (see Eliot’s “The Waste Land”). While “The Shield of Achilles” employs traditional forms and is not particularly symbolic, it does contain rich descriptions, entwine two disparate historical events, and have concerns about modern morality.
It also employs a fatalistic speaker who coldly reports the bleakness of the modern world—a quintessential Modernist narrator. However, the speaker suggests that such an apathetic perspective is absurd and detrimental by contrasting widespread devastation with the careless figures on the shield. Plus, the narration directly contrasts ancient and modern storytelling conventions. Therefore, the poem can be interpreted as a subtle critique of Modernist works that aestheticize modern failings without challenging them, which ultimately normalizes and romanticizes a resigned attitude.
Auden explored issues of morality throughout his career, generally taking a more overtly political stance in his early years and gradually becoming more spiritual and philosophical. “The Shield of Achilles” sits somewhere in the middle—it mourns the suffering brought about by World War II using muted religious language. These elements are shared with an earlier Auden poem, “Museé des Beaux Arts.”
Historical Context
“The Shield of Achilles” was written in the decade after World War II, which took place from 1939-1945. This period saw unprecedented devastation, taking more lives than any conflict before or since. Tens of millions of civilians died as a result of bombings, massacres, internment, genocides, and famine, among other causes. Germany’s Nazi party systematically murdered about 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, an event that sent shock waves around the world.
There was also a much larger number of photographers at the front than ever before, leading to the circulation of the most heinous and tragic photos of warfare the world had ever seen. Plus, a decrease in censorship allowed for images of the American dead to be published in the U.S. for the first time. In short, such unfiltered documentation of the trauma that war brings about confronted and stunned the world.
In the years leading up to World War II, Auden traveled extensively. He spent extended periods in Spain and China, where he documented the wars that each country was facing at home. He could sense that a great, wide-sweeping conflict was about to erupt, which reportedly contributed to his decision to immigrate to the United States from the UK in early 1939.
Auden was therefore able to draw from his own experiences, other firsthand accounts, and raw records when writing about war. Such resources were not available to Homer, who was born hundreds of years after the conclusion of the Trojan War and could reference only oral histories and other works of art. Plus, historians generally agree that the Trojan War never really took place or is an elaborate dramatization of some contemporary conflict. Auden recognized this divergence and took advantage of the remarkably full and vivid picture of war that he possessed.
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More “The Shield of Achilles” Resources
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External Resources
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Auden Reads “The Shield of Achilles” — Listen to a recording of the author reading the poem aloud.
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Auden's Life Story — A detailed look at the author’s life and works from the Poetry Foundation.
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"The Shield of Achilles," First Edition — Scans of Auden’s 1955 poetry collection, including the title poem in its original format.
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Visualizing Achilles’s Shield — Browse various artistic interpretations of Achilles’s shield.
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The Iliad Study Guide — A guide to Homer’s Iliad from LitCharts, including a concise summary and a discussion of the shield of Achilles as a symbol.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by W. H. Auden
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