Auden poetry

Celestial body : "the stars" -> a universal problem, a metaphor of someone

Being ignored : "for all they care" "of stars that do not give a damn"

Unrequited love : "we could not return" "admirer"

Prefers to be the one that loves more, than the one that loves less "let the more loving one be me"

-> the author tries to reason with himself, in the 3rd and 4th stanza he almost denies what he says in the first 2 (anger), although he understands that it will be difficult "though this may take a little time" - ironic understatement

Simple, everyday language -> ordinary/ignorant soldier, narrow minded-> "he worships a fish"

In an unfriendly situation -> the weather "wet wind blows" and bad conditions "lice" "cold" -> complaining, childish, pathetic register, contrast with Tungria

Roman + weather + heather + wall = hadrian's wall ?

Roman times -> eternal universal experience of an ordinary soldier

Neglected and forgotten "alone"

Simple needs, no principles, gambling

"Look at the sky" -> thinking of God when close to death ? / thinking of his "girl" that cannot return his want for her (not love though : more practical reasons - not to be alone)

A poem about suffering in classical art - ekphrasis -> Auden's wide cultural knowledge

Upside down sentence makes "suffering" the key term -> referred to throughout the poem among other everyday events

Important moments happen without people noticing and amidst other details (juxstapositions)

References to Breughel's (16th) paintings :The fall of IcarusThe Census at Bethlehem

A pessimistic elegy (although originally written as a parodyof a businessman's death)

Rhymes -one // moaning -> mourning of someone beloved that has died "coffin" "mourners"

Imperatives "stop" "prevent" "silence" etc -> Wants to spread his sorrow and pain

Loss of direction -> cardinal points ; loss of time "week" "sunday" ; loss of sound -> "talk" "song"

Intimate insight into the importance the person had in the persona's life "love"

brutal ending of 3rd stanza "I was wrong."

Orders to get rid of everything seeing as they are pointless

blocking out light and sound "silence" "put out [the stars]" "dismantle the sun"

3 of the 4 elements -> centre of the universe

celestial bodies

Pessimistic scene  : a drooping sorrowful willow

The persona urges a lover to act on his love instead of "sulking" and "moping"

The persona wonders whether the lover does actually love or whether he is "cold"

The map symbolises the future

Bell = either a funeral reminding the lover of human mortality or a wedding foreshadowing a what could happen

If you don't exres your love = "unloving shadows"

The voice encourages the lover to not give in but to "strike" in order to "conquer"

The last line of 2nd stanza // striking and convincing

2 natural metaphors that show planned routes "geese" "icy brooks"

Written to Benjamin Britten

IFree verse with no rhyme scheme  

 Euphemism "disappeared" -> dead :pathetich fallasy -> "frozen" "dying day" "dark cold day" allit d later repeated at end of II

But away from this death life carries on. Close to nature -> contrast countryside (2nd stanza) / cities "airports" "statues"                                                                                          

Description of how the poet died : gradual loss of consiousness // a city that no longer fuctions

 no control over interpetations of his poems through which he still lives "scattered" "unfamiliar affections" words of a dead man" "modified" "punished" ++ negative

allit in b -> brutality, uncivilised  

  a few people will remember Yeat's death as a small event

II no rhyme scheme // prose

"silly like us" -> ordinary person, anti-heroism, but a "gift" that survived and thrived in a "Mad Ireland" poetry is a way to express all surroundings

III regular rhyme scheme 7 syllables // funeral march, "Irish vessel" : body that carried poetry

War approaching "dogs of Europe bark" : brain drain and ideology : lack of empathy

Encourages poems to live on because they carry the joy we will need to go against "seas of pity" -> tears : nourish "verse" and harvest it "farming" // "healing"

Very present rythm with a 10 syllable beat // train -> personnified as a she "she's on time"

Geography of Scotland "border" "Beattock" "moorland" "grasses" "farm" "Glasgow" but with a contrat of the countryside in 1st and 2nd Stanza, through the city in stanza 3 and 5 -> industrial landscape but metaphors of the countryside "fields"

Sibilance // hissing of steam

4th stanza about all the letters that the train contains : a journey through life "Highlands and Lowlands". the letters echo the wide variety of human nature and people. +oxymorons

anaphora "Letters" -> vast amount

5th stanza : calmer no rhyme scheme, less beat // dreaming and sleeping

the feeling of being ignored is stopped by receiving a letter

Homer's illiad ->making of the shield by the god Hephaestus the scenes that Achilles' mother, the Nereid Thetis rep "She looked over his shoulder" expects to see (looks to see what her son would be fighting for) alternate free and strict structure to reflect the meaning.:

Thetis expects to find scenes of happiness and peace like those described by Homer. Mediterranean countryside -> "vines and olive trees"
 civilisations -> "well governed cities"
 "ships"              Setting scene for greek myth

 tradition, ancient culture, religion, nature, images of health (/pale figures of death)

achilles is responsible for this world shown in the shield where terrors such as ****, stabbings are "axioms", pessimistic. This upsets Thetis "dismay" in fact Achilles is "man-slaying"

However she is dissapointed, image is crushed by a nastier picture "But" "instead". Her expectations are confronted with a cold, monotonous and barren (rep° no no plain bare) picture :

"artificial wilderness" "sky like lead" (contrast with nature previous)

The stanzas become more structured (rimes). // War, totalitarianism, no individuals just a mass "unintelligible multitude" "boots"= soldiers

General comment on ideology, dehumanisation, // modern life (anachronism "barbed wire"), lack of hope, meaning, inpersonal "never heard of any world where [...] one could weep becaus another wept, "arbitrary"

Common occurence "bored" of deaths "pale figures" "posts driven upright in the ground"

Auden goes on to give a morality about how these victims had no power, were helpless "they were small" they lose human dignity"and die as men before their bodies died"