This blog is reaponse of thinking Activity given by Professor Dr dilip Barad sir Here i discuss about this two 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?
First l discuss About the Author:
Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-73) was born in York, England, and was educated at the University of Oxford. He described how the poetic outlook when he was born was ‘Tennysonian’ but by the time he went to Oxford as a student in 1925, T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land had alter edy left Britain for the United States, much to the annoyance of his fellow left-wing writers who saw such a move as a desertion of Auden’s political duty as the most prominent English poet of the decade. In America, where he lived for much of the rest of his life with his long-time partner Chester Kallman, Auden collaborated with composers on a range of musicals and continued to write poetry, but 90% of his best work belongs to the 1930s, the decade with which is most associated. He died in 1973 in Austria, where he had a holiday home.
1) Auden's poems seems to be written in our times for 2022. Justify this in context of pandemic and Russia-Ukraine war.
Answer: First I discuss about Auden's Poems in detail then justify this in context of pandemic and Russia - Ukraine war.
⭐In Memory of W.B. Yeats
In Memory of W. B. Yeats was first published in New Republic 1939. The poem was written by Auden to mourn the death of W.B Yeats, the great Irish poet and a contemporary of Auden, in January 1939. The poem is divided into three sections which form separate poetic units within the poem; the relationship among these units is not very close and organic, as each section is based on somewhat independent strains of thought.It is important in reading Auden's poem to conceive clearly the typical attitude of the English intellectuals towards Ireland and the Irish tradition.
‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ is in three parts, each of which has its own form and style.
PART I: In the first section, W. H. Auden discusses the death of W. B. Yeats ‘in the dead of winter’ (well, Yeats did die in January, after all), a time when the brooks were all frozen over and snow made it difficult to make out the public statues.
Auden then describes Yeats’s death, in the third stanza, concluding that, with his passing, Yeats ‘became his admirers’: once Yeats the man had ceased to be, Yeats the poet became whatever his readers and fans decided he was.
Auden says that the words of a dead man are ‘modified in the guts of the living’: we cannot help but change the meaning of what a poet wrote, adapting it to suit out our times and our own feelings.
PART II: in the second section of ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’, Auden turns to address (or apostrophise) the dead Yeats directly.It is here that Auden makes his famous statement that ‘poetry makes nothing happen’. This is often analysed as an admission of poetry’s limitations as a tool for social and political change.
PART III: the final section of ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ is written in regular quatrains of trochaic tetrameter catalectic (i.e. with the second half of that fourth and final foot lopped off), rhymed aabb. The trochaic metre here evokes the song, and there is something more formal (in both senses of the word) and even incantatory about this concluding section.The final couplet sees Auden commanding Yeats – Yeats the poet, for Yeats the man has gone – to teach the free man, the living, to praise and celebrate in the short time allotted to us.
Throughout ‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’, there is a taut restraint that prevents the poem from spilling over into mawkishness or sentimentality. Auden describes the day of Yeats’s death as ‘a dark cold day’, but this is objectively true, rather than mere pathetic fallacy or Romantic expression.
⭐ September 1, 1939
W.H. Auden's "September 1, 1939" was first published in the October 18, 1939, edition of The New Republic, before being included in the poet's collection Another Time. Written upon the outbreak of World War II, the poem captures feelings of fear and uncertainty in the face of fascism and war—as well as glimmers of hope that people might come together to counter authoritarianism. It is one of Auden's most well-known poems, and widely considered one of the greatest poems of the 20th century; ironically, however, the poet himself grew to despise it.
Auden's poem 'September 1, 1939 was originally published in New Republic of October 18, 1939. It was reprinted in the poet's collection of 1940, Another Time. September 1, 1939, is the date of Hitler's invasion of Poland, with which a decade of shameful political compromise came to an end and the long waiting war at last broke upon the West. The poem is centred upon the need to establish a just society. The basis of such a society is universal love, the Christian Agape indeed, which appears to be denied by the Eros of the individual corrupted by sin. According to Auden, nobody is pure in heart, because the law of our own nature is corrupt; Eros, being selfish, tends towards evil.
The poem's setting is a bar in the City of New York, remembering formidable event of history On September 1, 1939, Hitler invaded Poland, where the poet sits reflecting upon the momentous. The poet, and every other ordinary man of good will sits in the pit of the city, "uncertain and afraid". The decade of 1930's was a decade of shameful political compromise. The whole of the world was torn between anger and fear. The fear of death was hanging over the head of every body like the sword of Democles: "The unmentionable odour of death, offends the September night."
In the first Stanza the poet describes the 'waves of anger and fear' which gripped the 'darkened lands of the earth', affecting the private lives of the people and bearing a burking fear of death at its trail.
In the second stanza Auden casts a searching glance retrospectively on the history of Germany since the times of Luther and concludes that the whole German nation and culture went mad when Luther launched his movement of nationalism. The process of disintegration and violence which started with Luther had reached its gruesome culmination with Hitler. Auden feels, following the tradition of Freudian Psychology, that Hitler, the "imago" of Linz, developed into a psychopath due to the unfortunate experiences of his childhood.
In the third stanza it is said that the dictators have exploited and twisted the principles of democracy and deceived people by mouthing falsehood and nonsense. Over the centuries in the past, people have become deadened to rational thinking and 'enlightenment'. They have accepted the state of affairs and are willing to suffer pain and suffering at the hands of the misgoverning rulers.
In the fourth stanza the blind skyscrapers', proclaim the strength of "collective man" - the society and the establishment. Stanza five describes how euphoria has made people forgetful, of course temporarily, about the miseries and cruelties perpetuated by war. In the sixth stanza Auden introduces the main thought of the poem; we might call it the central theme of the poem.In the seventh stanza the poet talks of the helplessness of man, uneventful life and the governors playing their game of fooling them goes on incessantly. Who can 'reach the deaf' and 'speak for the dumb?The last stanza concludes on the note of faint hope.
Here, I compare Auden's poem with today's pandemic:
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The rivers were frozen, the airports were almost deserted,
These are the first two lines of the poem in memory of WB Yates. In this line we see how the poet speaks of winter death. But here I compare the death of winter with the death of people in the time of Corona. And the airport is almost deserted which means the second wave of Corona at that time our PM announces lockdown in India. It also stops flights from here to other countries. Other countries also stop flights to its own country. International flights stop at India. The airport and bus stand are also deserted. So we can connect that line with the epidemic of corona.
The day of his death was a black cold day.
Away from his illness
Here I am using this line in reference to the people who died in Corona. Because the second wave of corona it is very dangerous and at that time people died for its immunity and many people were affected by this epidemic. At that time some viral news or video also comes. This video shows some reality of the hospital because the hospital does not take proper care of all these people and because of this people die in the hospital in a few minutes and then the hospital staff calls the family. Your member is dead. You come and take his body. And sometimes the funny thing is that they are all attending the funeral of their own family members when the hospital calls him again and says that your father is fine now you come here and take care of him. So they all have a reason they don’t like to stay in the hospital bed. And at that time a large number of people died in the Corona epidemic.
Because of this people pray to God to keep away from this epidemic and some people are ready for vaccination and all those reasons are responsible for ending the epidemic. The current epidemic is almost over. Not completely finished but not more of a corona so we can say that and this virus does not spread more and now people live normal life without masks and without lockdown and many people come together in any work without any fear. So all these things start in 2019 in two years and end in 2022. In these two years many things have changed in people's lives and nowadays some things are normal. Now I say that we are all back to normal life.
After two years now people's ready to live normal life without any fear. That's why indian government has started everything and reopened for example Airports, Theatre, Party plot, hotels etc.
Here, I compare Auden's poem 'Epitaph on a Tyrant' with Rassia and Ukraine's war.
W. H. Oden spent some time in Berlin during the 1930s, and it was here that he probably wrote 'Epitaph on a Tyrant', published in 1939, the year World War II broke out. In the mind of a certain tyrant Oden, at the time, was probably Adolf Hitler, although the poem can be more generally analyzed as a study of oppression.
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;
Here Oden uses "him" as Adolf Hitler since the outbreak of World War II. And at that time Adolf Hitler was at the peak of his power in Europe. And now people in the Russia-Ukraine war also compare Putin to Adolf Hitler. Here poet use this line is 'He' was greatly interested in armies. 'He' means Hitlar and here i compare Putin as Hitlar.
Russia has been bombing major Ukrainian cities for more than a week in a battle that has left Moscow on the brink of collapse - yet its campaign to occupy Ukraine seems unwavering.
On March 4, Russia annexed Zaporizhzia, one of Europe's largest nuclear power plants. The facility was set on fire by Russian artillery in southeastern Ukraine, prompting Ukrainian officials to warn that it could lead to a nuclear disaster. U.S. officials say Russia now appears to be in control of the plant.
But the incident is a reminder of how dangerous this war is becoming in Ukraine, and how much uncertainty and confusion still exists on the ground. Russian troops were advancing on Kiev, and thousands and thousands were fleeing in advance of a possible siege on the city.
A pre-invasion map of Ukraine and surrounding countries, including areas already annexed by Russia. Christina Animashaun/Vox
Putin’s attempt to redraw the map of Europe risks becoming the most devastating conflict on the continent since World War II. Already, it is causing an astounding humanitarian crisis: Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians have died, and more than 1.5 million people have fled the violence so far, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, making it the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Tensions escalated quickly when, on February 21, Putin delivered an hour-long combative speech that essentially denied Ukrainian statehood. He recognized the independence of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine where Moscow has backed a separatist rebellion since 2014 and sent so-called peacekeeping forces into the region.We can easily associate this verse with Putin's speech and say that some leaders are always talking nonsense which makes war possible in today's world. Shortly after Putin's speech, reports of explosions around cities, including eastern Ukraine and the capital Kharkiv, surfaced Kiev. This is an example of his nonsense.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Stanza five describes how euphoria has made people forgetful, of course temporarily, about the miseries and cruelties perpetuated by war. People spend most of their time in the bar, where "The lights must never go out. The music must always play." This was the time o black-outs because of the fear of air-raids: but the people in the bar do not want the lights to go out since that would make them conscious of the war. Therefore, all the social conventions (social gatherings, visiting the bar) have made them assume bar-like places as the most secure and comfortable niche, where they feel quite at home. This temporary oblivion of their real predicament provides them a sense of security and they forget for the time being as to where they are: "Lest we should see where we are". They would not like to be reminded that theirs is a generation "lost in a haunted wood", where children are afraid of the night, and where they have "never been happy or good."and this war time people are effected by the war and he use light as a symbol. This line we are compar in this poem.
This war time our indian many students are effected that's why Amid the escalating crisis in Ukraine, India government under Operation Ganga has brought back Indian citizens in record numbers. India has flown 13,700 citizens - who were stuck in war-hit Ukraine - back to safety on special flights that were started last week. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for another high-level meeting on Saturday evening to discuss the situation in war-hit Ukraine and India's evacuation efforts to bring back its citizens as a part of the Operation Ganga, the government mission to ensure return of the citizens from Ukraine, 27 control centres have been set up through border crossing points with Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovak Republic. This all students are back from Ukraine. Student parents or other femily members are happy to see Indian government work he all are proud of our prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The students are proud of our Prime Minister Narendra Modi because all the students have come to India because of him. Here we can see one painting of bridge but this bridge are not original but use as a symbol to compare India's PM to others country PM.
Thank you
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