Sunday, March 6, 2022

Auden's Poems

Auden Poems  





W.H Auden was born in York, England, on February 21, 1907. 
W. H Auden was a British-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form, and content. In 1928, his collection Poems was privately printed, but it wasn't until 1930, when another collection titled Poems was published, that Auden was established as the leading voice of a new generation.

W. H. Auden served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1954 to 1973.Some of his best known poems are about love, such as "Funeral Blues"; on political and social themes, such as "September 1, 1939" and "The Shield of Achilles"; on cultural and psychological themes, such as The Age of Anxiety; and on religious themes such as "For the Time Being" and "Horae Canonicae". He died in Vienna on September 29, 1973.

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

September 1, 1939, poem by W.H. Auden, published in the collection Another Time (1940). The poem conveys the poet's emotional response to the outbreak of World War II. The title of the work refers to the date of the German invasion of Poland, which precipitated the war.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine parallels Adolf Hitler’s invasion of Poland in ways that aren’t small. A dictator’s claim to Lebensraum started with Sudetenland and Austria and then went cancerously to Poland. From there, we know what happened. So this how we can relate this  poem in today’s scenario. 


The first part of the poem addresses the last days of Yeats’ life and what it was like right after he died. Auden speaks on the loss and how it impacted and didn’t impact, the world. The second section of ‘In Memory of W.B. "Yeats’ is directed, through a second person speaker, to Yeats himself. While the third is an elegy meant to sum up that which was spoken about previously but also make new statements about what poetry can do for humankind, especially in the face of WWII.  


Epitaph on a Tyrant', like many of Auden's poems of the 1930s, was inspired by the appalling events of that decade, but it also neatly summarize the qualities and behavior of all tyrants, from Herod(In medieval mystery plays Herod was portrayed as a blustering tyrant, and the name was therefore given to someone one who had played the part, or who had an overbearing temper) to Henry VIII to Hitler.
We can say that this  Auden poem to be written in our times of 2022 . By the following ways
For example In today’s we can see the ruler of North Korea. They have toughest rules Foreign movies, songs not allowed, Disloyalty to the leader can mean the death penalty ,Only government-approved haircuts etc.
we can even justify through Russia and Ukraine war that  one ruler declare and things starts taking place. 

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

 What is Queer Studies ?



Queer studies, sexual diversity studies, or LGBT studies is the study of issues relating to sexual orientation and gender identity usually focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, gender dysphoria, asexual, queer, questioning, intersex people and cultures.


There is even a TV series based on Queer Studies. Queer Eye is an American reality television series, initially released on February 7, 2018, on Netflix. It is a reboot of the Bravo eponymous series, featuring a new "Fab Five": Antoni Porowski, food and wine expert; Tan France, fashion expert; Karamo Brown, culture expert; Bobby Berk, design expert; and Jonathan Van Ness, grooming expert. The award-winning show is known for its strong representation amongst the LGBT community and communities that include people of color.

What Nijinsky Wrote About Diaghilev?

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love
But to be loved alone.”

W.H Auden
In this stanza, Auden compares the rants of "windiest" militants and famous politicians to the deepest desires of the common people. What they have in common is that the desire for love is not a wish for everyone to love everyone else, but for oneself to be loved by everyone.

 Nijinsky (1890-1950) was a famous Russian ballet dancer, considered by many to be one of the greatest dancers of all time. At the height of his career, in 1909, he became romantically involved with Russian businessman and philanthropist Serge Diaghilev, whose financial support helped make the Ballets one of the most important and successful companies of its time. In 1919, Nijinsky suffered a nervous breakdown, and spent the rest of his life in a series of mental institutions. According to Sam Diener in an annotated commentary of "September 1, 1939" in Educators for Social Responsibility, Nijinsky wrote in his diary that "Some politicians are hypocrites like Diaghilev, who does not want universal love, but to be loved alone." Auden uses some of these same words, and certainly the same sentiment, in this stanza of the poem.

The phrase "bred in the bone," in line 62, is a shortened version of the proverb "What's bred in the bone will come out in the flesh," which means that habits that are rooted deep within the essence of human beings will always show themselves in human behavior.

In poem Auden has described about Nijinsky and Diaghilev from this we can say that Auden uses codified language to conceal underlying theme of the lack of acceptance of homosexuality in society.




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