W. H. Auden - On This Island

Auden's intro states that T. S. Eliot was a major influence on him. "Auden said that when, at nineteen, he read The Waste Land, he discovered how he wanted to write and threw out his Wordsworthian verses." This is interesting because although I can see a bit of an influence from Eliot, I enjoyed Auden a lot more than Eliot. I think Auden's use of "prosey" diction and simpler ideas helped me to understand and like his works a lot more.

A Poem that we didn't really discuss in class but I think I liked the most is called On This Island. Not only does it paint a beautiful picture of the English coast, it is also fun to read! I really loved lines like "The leaping light for your delight discovers" and "That through the channels of the ear/ may wander like a river/ the swaying sound of the sea." Then we get the image of all the ships out in the water and we are told that with this full view of them sailing away, they move in our memory like the clouds "that pass the harbour mirror/ and all the summer through the water saunter." I just found this poem to be so beautiful. It really stuck out to me I think because of the sort-of romantic portrayal of the ocean. I loved it.

W.H Auden Spain

i his poem spain, Auden recalls his experience after visiting spain. the poem engages the audience into the war. what is interesting is that i did a lot of research on the spanish civil war and Lorca. what i came across was that like many other writers of the time, he was sympathetic to the republic. also it was interesting that Lorca was assassinated by franco's firing squad because of his homosexuality, as Auden was himself. it is clear from his other poems as well that he is driving by war.His poem is politically motivated, it also calls upon action. in his poems he stand against Fascist and Repression.

the Shield

As we mentioned in class, The Shield of Achilles seems to be a mixture of the old and new. As with the Unknown Citizen, in which Auden expresses how the individual is lost, the Shield of Achilles seems to have a similar message. I find it interesting that Auden chose weave the mythology of old into present day, perhaps suggesting that we never escape the problems of the past.

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.

I think this section of the poem is suggesting the idea of the lost "individual". "A million eyes, a million boots in line" sounds like a robotic formation, something mechanical, a mass body of people moving together not on their own accord, but through the orders of another. As these people wait for a sign, their lives are bleak and mundane; furthermore, no one is taking initiative to move on their own, or separate themselves from this robotic group.

Further in the poem, there is a line stating statistics determined their cause just, and the men keep marching, to their grief. From reading this, I feel like Auden was expressing how he saw the world as a bleak place. When it is later stated that "Achilles will not live long" I am led to think that this death Auden is referring to is a psychological and emotional death that steals a person long before physical death. Lastly, this may be far fetched, but what the heck. . . perhaps Auden is suggesting man cannot be shielded from this grief and the bleakness of the world. Although there was high hope for Achilles, he too was inevitably consumed by the drudgery.

A popuri post

As I discussed in my presentation in class D.H. Lawrence’s poetry was very diverse. Helen Sword (writer of my article) lays out a list of all other poets who can be compared to Lawrence when she says “[i]n his experimentation with free verse and his attention to poetic image as a concrete vehicle for abstract emotion, he resembles modernist contemporaries, such as Pound, Williams, H.D. and even Eliot. As an unabashed visionary, he fits into a Romantic lyrical tradition stretching from Blake, Wordsworth and Shelley through Whitman, Hopkins and Yeats. As a confessional poet, he forms a link in an unbroken chain that reaches from Whitman, Meredith, Hardy and Yeats through Robert Lowell, sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. And as a careful observer and awed explicator of nature, he finds common ground not only with twentieth-century ‘thing-poets’ such as Williams, marianne Moore, Rainer maria Rilke and Francis Ponge, but also with more recent writers such as Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes” (Sword 120). We are familiar with some of the mentioned poets so we can match up the styles that she’s discussing.

One poet that we recently discussed was H.D. She wrote some Imagism poetry, which we learned was short, described an action and painted a very focused picture. One of these poems was called Oread:

Whirl up, sea-

Whirl your pointed pines,

Splash your great pines

On our rocks,

Hurl your green over us,

Cover us with your pools of fir.

Oread is a nymph of the mountains and in this we are given imagery of water and mountains which I find really weird. I’m not too sure I enjoy Imagism, from what I’ve read. I’m disappointed to say... I don’t really enjoy H.D. Although I don’t like lengthy poetry, I don’t like short and abrupt poetry either. I guess I’m difficult to please.

The next poet on the list is W.H. Auden, who writes an array of different poems. His mix of different styles and subject matters makes it difficult to not find something you like. With such a selection, you are bound to find something. For me, there were a few. One of them was “The Shield of Achilles.” I’ve mentioned a few times before that I enjoy mythology. Although this poem isn’t difficult, it isn’t easy- you do have to put some thought behind it.

"September 1, 1939" & September 11, 2001, A Day We Should Never Forget

I couldn't help but comment on Auden's "September 1, 1939." It had such a resemblance to September 11th for me. Growing up a mere ten minutes away from Manhattan and waking up to see the beautiful city skyline was something I cherished. This particular poem of Auden's was recited during the time. It held great resonance with those affected by the attacks.

I remember every single moment of that day. I recall the sirens, the smoke, the horror, and the helplessness. The people around me clinging to anything they could: a cross, a church, their loved ones, strangers. No one had answers, so we looked to each other for support. It was a time in my life when I felt a true sense of community in the United States. We were all on the same page. When I moved to Pennsylvania that summer no one understood. It was almost like they didn't take it seriously or care about the monstrosities that occurred in our own country.

Since 2001 I refused to look at footage, newspapers, or be part of anything that discussed that day. It was only this September when I realized that I was trying to suppress what had occurred around me at age thirteen. By not watching and listening to what happened on September 11, 2001, I thought I could make it disappear from my memory like it never happened.

Reading "September 1, 1939" for the first time since I heard it recited on NPR in 2001 made me remember how I felt on September 11th. Each stanza contributed to a feeling or happening of that day. I couldn't believe how relatable the poem is. Stanza four in particular struck me most.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Though Auden is reflecting on the position of the U.S. before their involvement during WWII, I believe it holds relevance today. The morning of September 11, 2001 was a beautiful day. It was sunny, the temperature was perfect, and everyone seemed to be so happy--as people tend to be during nice weather. My middle school was on a hill that faced the Manhattan skyline. I was sitting at my desk looking out the window while my teacher was taking attendance; that moment was the last time I saw the towers standing. The buildings stood proud; they were powerful, an immediate view of success. Stability! I learned only a few minutes later, when I looked out the window again to see the blackest smoke I'd ever seen, that we were now unstable, powerless, and living in a fairy tale. The United States of America has never been the same since that day.

The Life of Hilda Doolittle

I enjoyed reading poetry by a female this week. Since H.D. was our first female poet in class, after I finished our readings I decided to do some research on her life. What I became aware of and found most interesting was the fact that Hilda Doolittle was a woman of her time who became noticed. I found that Hilda Doolittle was a Pennsylvania native and that she attended the University of Pennsylvania. While she was attending college she became friends with the well-known William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound. It was through the help Ezra Pound that Doolittle began to experiment with Imagism. H.D. soon became the conductor of the Imagist movement and gained recognition, but that recognition was not universal.

Hilda Doolittle was disregarded during her lifetime mostly due to the feminist subject matter within her work. However, today Doolittle's work can be attributed to that of inspiration. It makes me sad to think that H.D.'s work was not held with high appreciation, but I am personally glad that a female poet can be considered great today. It shows how far we, as a society, have come.

Auden's Satire

Modern society seems to be a common theme among the twentieth century poets we’ve been studying. Whether it is J. Alfred Prufrock, basically lost and unconnected amidst all the people of the big city, or the speaker in Lawrence’s “The Snake,” who struggles between his natural instincts and what society has taught him is right, modern society is a topic common to much of the poetry we’ve read. Therefore, in going with this theme, I found Auden’s “The Unknown Citizen” to be a very interesting poem. This interest comes not only from how Auden’s poem compares to some of the other “society” poems we’ve read, but also in some of its own individual merits.

Compared to “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” and “The Snake” I find that Auden takes a somewhat more satirical look at modern society. Take, for example, the final two lines of “The Unknown Citizen,” which read “Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: / Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.” Evidently some sort of government official, the speaker in this poem acts as if he knows everything about the unknown citizen. The speaker is even confident enough to state that the man’s happiness was a given, but readers can see the satire in the speaker’s delusion. Impossible for an official to know everything about an individual, Auden satirizes modern society/government in their very attempt to do so. The speaker seems to think the unknown citizen had everything he could ever need, “A gramophone, a radio, a car and a Frigidaire,” but readers realize that there is so much more to life than material possessions. Therefore, in reducing the citizen to one who needs nothing more than to have the right material possessions, Auden satirizes the shallowness of the modern age. Eliot and Lawrence also have their own complaints with modern society, but Auden is interesting to me in that he uses satire to make his own complaints.

Yet, even without comparing his poem to the works of other poets, Auden’s “The Unknown citizen” is interesting in its own rights. Take, for example, the title of the poem. When I first started this poem the title led me to believe it would almost be like an ode to someone who had died. And I suppose, in a small way, that’s what the poem is; however, it is certainly not presented in the manner one would expect. The speaker’s clinical, aloof way of talking about the citizen takes away all tenderness normally expressed in poems about one who has died. Therefore, by juxtaposing the tenderness the readers expect to the rough, modern approach of the speaker, Auden displays how cold and sterile modern society can be. Therefore, even based solely on its own rights, “The Unknown Citizen” is a very interesting poem.

All the poems we’ve read so far about modern society have been rather bleak. But, I suppose bleak times call for bleak poetry. Indeed, written during the very beginning of WWII, it is not much of a surprise that Auden would satirize modern society throughout “The Unknown Citizen.” Nevertheless, despite the bleakness of this poem, I still find that the comparisons it makes to other “society” poems and its own individual merits still make “The Unknown Citizen” a poem worthy of recognition.