Research! Recollect! Review! : Auden's Poems

W.H.Auden's Poem

Hello, I am Emisha Ravani, Writing this blog as a thinking activity given by Prof. Dilip Barad. To get much information you can visit the teacher's blog. Here, I am going to discuss these below questions.

1) Auden's poems seems to be written in our times for 2022. Justify this in context of pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war.

2) In order to create duality in interpretation of the poem (September 1, 1939), Auden uses codified language to conceal the underlying theme of the lack of acceptance of homosexuality in society. Do you agree with this observation?

W.H. Auden the full name is Wystan Hugh Auden. He is the British- American poet. And we have his three notable poems here to look at, Those are like,
1. September 1, 19393.

2.Epitaph on a Tyrant

3. In Memory of W. B. Yeats

Let's have a first look on the poem "In Memory of W.B.Yeats".

The poem:

He disappeared in the dead of winter:

The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,

And snow disfigured the public statues;

The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

Far from his illness

The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,

The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;

By mourning tongues

The death of the poet was kept from his poems.

But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,

An afternoon of nurses and rumours;

The provinces of his body revolted,

The squares of his mind were empty,

Silence invaded the suburbs,

The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities

And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,

To find his happiness in another kind of wood

And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.

The words of a dead man

Are modified in the guts of the living.

But in the importance and noise of to-morrow

When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the bourse,

And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed

And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom

A few thousand will think of this day

As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.

What instruments we have agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day.

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:

The parish of rich women, physical decay,

Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,

For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives

In the valley of its making where executives

Would never want to tamper, flows on south

From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,

Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,

A way of happening, a mouth.

III

Earth, receive an honoured guest:

William Yeats is laid to rest.

Let the Irish vessel lie

Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark

All the dogs of Europe bark,

And the living nations wait,

Each sequestered in its hate;

Intellectual disgrace

Stares from every human face,

And the seas of pity lie

Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right

To the bottom of the night,

With your unconstraining voice

Still persuade us to rejoice;

With the farming of a verse

Make a vineyard of the curse,

Sing of human unsuccess

In a rapture of distress;

In the deserts of the heart

Let the healing fountain start,

In the prison of his days

Teach the free man how to praise.

From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House.

The poem “In Memory of W.B.Yeats” by W.H.Auden, he wrote this poem on the death of W.B.Yeats so we can consider it as elegy (in modern literature a poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead). Auden has not followed the tradition of writing elegy that’s why it is much different elegy which is modern elegy. In this poem we can get the main theme is ‘ The role of poem’ and about whom? That is “Poet”.

Let’s go to direct poem, when very first word poet uses “He”, from that we know that poet is talking about W.B.Yeats here. And he says that ‘he disappeared in the dead of winter’ means poet is addressing the death of W.B.Yeats. Further we can see that poet has used the fact of the day instead of nearly metaphor. Also we find the modernism elements here when we see the words like airports and thermometer. By this reference of thermometer he wants to make us know that when Yeats was died he was in ill bed. The day of his death is dark cold day, here he says that it is not normal day. In literature we often get this kind of metaphor when such figures died that such gloomy elements. Then he describe the nature and animals with the reference of death.

The provinces of his body revolted,

The squares of his mind were empty,

Silence invaded the suburbs,

The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.

From these lines we interpret that the how his body and mind was suffering at the death day. And now his admirers will remember him.

Now he is scattered among a hundred cities

And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,

By this line he says that now poet will scattered everywhere by his works. And by unfamiliar affections, that is the idea of poet is no more. In the further lines poet used the vocab of share market. And by that poet says that there are people who are not effected by the death of poet but there are few people who can be effected by the poet’s death.

In the second stanza, he direct uses “He” as poet. Yeats was political active figure and he was telling people to fight for freedom. He wrote for the people in the context of Ireland. But still that condition has not changed at all.

“For poetry makes nothing happen:”, here poet is saying that poets write for the betterment of people but poetry can not make any change in the society. This the theme that how can poetry make change! And where poetry can survive! Even the stuffs will be survive in the poetry. The voices of the readers will make poetry survive as he says. If poet died then, yet poetry should not be died.

In the last stanza,

Earth, receive an honoured guest:

William Yeats is laid to rest.

Let the Irish vessel lie

Emptied of its poetry.

When Yeats’s body will entered in the earth as honored guest. “Vessel” means his all collection of poetry we can say.

In the nightmare of the dark

All the dogs of Europe bark,

And the living nations wait,

Each sequestered in its hate;

Here, we can take the reference of WW2 that how the various European countries were fighting to each other. And poet says that when dark time come still your poetry will make it rejoice. Whenever dullness exist the verses of the poet will make the golden world. And by the word “curse” there is the bible reference.

In the deserts of the heart

Let the healing fountain start,

In the prison of his days

Teach the free man how to praise.

In these lines, he says that agony in the deserted heart poetry will be the healing fountain to that agony. And poetry will be always fight it’s own survive. Poetry is for the people who are busy in their own lives.

The poem is not about the only W.B.Yeats but poem is for the all poets. It is the meditation or reflection, thinking on the role of poetry, place of in modern world. The modern world is for that people have no time for poetry and may questioning like, what is poetry for? Can poetry make anything happen? Should it make anything happen? The poem is answer to all above questions. And poet gives the light to the idea of changing the world by literature.

The main concern is here how modern world is much busy in the work and the forget to give importance to the poetry or literature. In this poem we can get the words like modern elements so from that we can come to know that this poem is written for the present time.

Epitaph on a Tyrant

The poem :

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,

And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;

He knew human folly like the back of his hand,

And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;

When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,

And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

W.H.Auden is Anglo- American poet. We should have historical sense when we want to study any texts. As per new criticism we will not ask that what poet wants to say, but we will ask what poetry wants to say. It is written around 1939 perhaps. Here the poet is trying to write about “Tyrant” and that is direct to the “Adolf Hitler”. Poet is not talking about only him but he talks about all kind of Tyrant.

Here very first word that is, ‘Perfection’. If we want to look it at by the first impression we can it has optimism itself. But we should see that in which way poet has used this word in the poem of tyrant. Might he went as negative tone too. Further, “of a kind” says that there is something in a particular way we can say by the poet has used the way to put this phrase. Like he says that kind of perfection of tyrants.

In the second line, there is the point that the songs are he is singing around the people. He uses the word “Invented” means that all the tyrants are saying that it is going to be done first time. How they use the pseudo language. In this poet is saying that they invented the poetry which is their own. ‘easy to understand’ mentioned here might it is saying that how tyrants use the way of oversimplify. Also here rise a question like poetry should be easy or hard to understand? Modern or twentieth century literature is not easy to understand so it cannot be understood by people so it is not democratic literature. So we can see the elements of modern literature.

Further, poet says that tyrants know the human folly like the back of his hand. It says that how tyrants uses the violence to people. By the human folly he might wants to go with ‘Emotional susceptibility’. For example when it comes to the mother, nation, religion or selfhood, people become emotional. And tyrants know about it so they always use these keys to pretend.

‘great interested in armies and fleets’ by this line we can see very easily this thing that how they pretend to people by dressing like armies and visit them on holidays. Let’s see how Hitler was in war time uniform and standing among the army men.

When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter, in this line he talks about senators that how they are behaving like sycophancy. From this image we can easily become familiar with the word.

Now a days we see that how people are becoming puppets of authorities. It is kind of show off or we can say people wanting such kind of power under them. Or longing to ruling.

And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

In the last line there is many reference like we see that every tyrants taking photographs with children to show the soft corner to people and we see by the psychological point of view we can say that they are doing this activity to hide their own guilt or they trying to convince their own selves to get rid of their wrong deeds. And here the reference of Jesus, and using that they wants to prove them as compassion personalities among them.

By these pictures we can get the idea that how they are using this sort of mindsets.

Another reference we find here there is interchange of the words in this line, here is one report which is specking about a very sympathetic ruler who is “ Dutch ruler William the Silent” the writer John Lothrop Motley says that : ‘ As long as he lived, he was the guiding star of a whole brave nations, and when he died the little children cried in the streets.