Which sentence describes a difference between Auden's "Musée des Beaux Arts' and Williams's "Landscape with the Fall of Icarus"?

A. Auden excludes any mention of witnesses to Icarus’s fall, while Williams includes the reactions of several people

B. Auden briefly discusses the ship’s attempt to help icarus, while Williams simply mentions the ship sailing away

C. Auden mentions a ploughman and a ship as witnesses to icarus’s fall, while Williams only mentions a farmer

D. Auden includes daedalus’s reaction to icarus’s drowning, while Williams leaves out Daedalus entirely

APEX 2020

The sentence which describes the difference between the two poems is:

C. Auden mentions a ploughman and a ship as witnesses to icarus’s fall, while Williams only mentions a farmer

Explanation:

Both poems are based on a painting that portrays the fall from the sky of the mythological character Icarus. According to the myth, Icarus made wax wings so that he could fly. However, having flown too close to the sun, his wings melted and he fell.

According to Auden's poem, a ploughman and a ship were witnesses to such a tragedy. No one, however, did anything to help poor Icarus:

[...] the ploughman may

Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,

But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone

As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green

Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen

Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,

Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Williams, on the other hand, only mentions a farmer (who is in fact the same ploughman). He does not mention the ship:

a farmer was ploughing

his field

the whole pageantry

of the year was

awake tingling

with itself

- "the die is cast; i have consented to return if we are not destroyed. thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision; i come back ignorant and disappointed. it requires more philosophy than i possess to bear this injustice with patience. i have lost my hopes of utility and glory; i have lost my friend."

can you give us the options