September 1 1939 auden summary. notes on Auden’s September 1, 1939 « Peter Levine 2022-10-25
September 1 1939 auden summary
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"September 1, 1939" is a poem written by W.H. Auden in 1939, on the eve of World War II. The poem reflects on the political climate of the time and the sense of uncertainty and fear that many people were feeling as the world was on the brink of war.
The poem begins with the lines: "I sit in one of the dives / On Fifty-second Street / Uncertain and afraid / As the clever hopes expire / Of a low dishonest decade." These lines set the tone of the poem, as the speaker expresses their sense of unease and fear in the face of the looming conflict. The reference to the "low dishonest decade" suggests that the speaker believes that the world has become corrupt and untrustworthy, and that the events leading up to the war are a reflection of this moral decay.
The poem goes on to describe the various ways in which people are reacting to the looming threat of war. Some are trying to ignore it and carry on with their lives as normal, while others are actively seeking to escape the impending conflict. The speaker observes that "the unmentionable odour of death / Offends the September night," and that "the streets of the city / Lie empty and still." These lines convey a sense of emptiness and despair, as the speaker realizes that the world is about to change irrevocably.
The poem concludes with a sense of resignation and acceptance, as the speaker acknowledges that "We must love one another or die." These lines suggest that in the face of such great danger and uncertainty, the only way to survive is to come together and support one another. The speaker seems to be urging people to come together and stand up for what they believe in, even in the face of such great adversity.
Overall, "September 1, 1939" is a poignant and powerful reflection on the political and social climate of the time, and serves as a reminder of the importance of unity and support in times of crisis. It is a thought-provoking and emotionally charged poem that speaks to the human condition and the enduring power of hope in the face of great adversity.
September 1, 1939 by W.H. Auden: Summary
While Auden didn't realize it at the time, these lines would become particularly damning after the war, when the German people were confronted with the collective guilt of the Holocaust. Leaving aside the question of whether a work is popular or not, the even more significant question to be asked is whether the masses might be right in this case, and "September 1, 1939" is actually a better poem than Auden thought. Their journey from the darkness to "the ethical life" indicates an attempt to become morally better than they are, but their morals are characterized by hollow platitudes that only serve to support the traditional understanding of Stanza 8 After a long stretch of observation, the poet returns to self-reflection, thinking about where his own role is in this complex Stanza 9 The poem's final stanza restates its claims of fear and helplessness. Today death and murder are realities, and there are very few things that make life worth living. The citation above will include either 2 or 3 dates.
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W. H. Auden: Poems Summary and Analysis of “September 1, 1939” » Smart English Notes
Later in that stanza, and in other places throughout the poem, he includes himself in the human situation by using the word "we," but that word is used so generally that it tells nothing about him or his situation. Auden wrote the poem over a weekend, but he would spend a good part of the rest of his life regretting it. Throughout the poem, Auden gives one example after another of ways in which those who have power force their will on those who are weaker. 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. The normal citizens are pretending to be happy and safe and keep on listening to the music and doing their daily chores, but at home they are in a haunted wood fearing death any time and can never be happy like a child who fears the darkness.
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(DOC) September 1, 1939
The poem speaks of three times: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. 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. The lonely bar Auden resides in suggests that like the country that inhabits him, Auden feels he is too separated and alienated within society, which may be due to his conflicting sexuality. Today is the struggle. The whole of the world was torn between anger and fear.
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W. H. Auden: Poems “September 1, 1939” Summary and Analysis
He saw that love was not sufficient for survival, as humans could love each other and still die, making the "or" statement incorrect. The Invasion of Poland The events that occurred on September 1, 1939, were long in coming. After presenting a despairing picture of individual isolation, Auden asks portentously: Who can release them now, Who can reach the deaf, Who can speak for the dumb? In the present system, the world is defenseless, living in an euphoric dream. There is no past. If you read through the whole body of Auden's prose for these years, you will find that quotations from these writers keep turning up, often in quite unlikely places, sometimes more than once. In the first few lines, members of the working class are characterized as "commuters" who travel to work in the city.
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September 1, 1939 Analysis
For a European writer who aspired to rootlessness, America was the obvious place to go. The poem is centered upon the need to establish a just society. The question that is raised by the way that Auden turned against this poem is not, of course, whether or not it is possible for a poem to be a failure even if millions of readers find it touching: greeting card shops are filled with the works of poetasters who churn out works that are almost always touching, even though no one would mistake them for art. The last stanza offers a humane and hopeful tone that is absent from the rest of the poem. The whole poem, I realized, was infected with an incurable dishonesty and must be scrapped. Regardless of Auden's later revisions, that the poem is still widely read today is partly because of the appeal of the sentiment of love's importance to survival. The poem mentions fear early, in line 3, and the concept expands from there throughout the rest of its length.
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A Short Analysis of W. H. Auden’s ‘September 1, 1939’
These and other revisions Auden would also revise his other famous political poem, "Spain" are significant not just politically but critically as well. And if that was true, then England was the wrong place for an English poet. The poem then turns to the future, presented as a hopeful time, filled with research, enlarging of consciousness, romance and love, music and art and theater, poetry, bicycle races, peaceful walks. By the 1940s and 1950s he had rejected his earlier political work, finding it "boring and dishonest. The other - the isolated individual - is self-regarding 'crooked' love, Eros, which mingles with the 'dust' in every man. It begins: Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave.
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September 1, 1939 Analysis
Auden uses Thucydides to suggest parallels between that conflict and the looming world war of Auden's day. It is happening again in 1939. In much the same way, the lessons of history become less important if humanity refuses to learn from them. Auden, perhaps because he was an artist, recognized the danger of tyrannizing ideologies more poignantly in the tragedy of an artist than in the case of Hitler's fascism. In a way it's frightening. By breaking down the overwhelming power of government and tradition like this, he makes the task of opposing it seem at least approachable. Despite Auden's later regret, however, this poem has struck a chord of admiration with generations of readers.
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September 1, 1939 Plot Summary
You are forced to live here as everyone will be forced to live. Perhaps it is not too much of a stretch to imagine the structure of each stanza as symbolizing past, present, and future, with the momentary present symbolized by the third line sandwiched between, and not rhyming with, the other periods. More than 2,000 years ago, Thucydides saw how dictators abuse an apathetic population to accomplish their ends, even in a democracy like Germany or the United States. The nations combine the individual cries, calling to History. Much of the poem is patterned on Auden's understandings of Jung's theories.
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September 1, 1939 Themes
There was no way to miss the fact that the poem was about an evil aggressor's attack on a complacent, unsuspecting public. . He soon came to loathe what he felt was its sanctimoniousness and as he saw it the frivolity of its famous assertion that "we must love one another or die. 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. Auden uses "imago" to imply that humans' need to worship someone or something has created an image that allows, or even encourages, the type of violence that will only stir up more violence in retaliation. Different readers will come to different conclusions and offer varying interpretations, but the poem endures. Another way that Auden makes his lines poetic is to transfer adjectives from the words they logically modify to other words in the sentence.
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September 1, 1939
In the fifth stanza, he describes what the people in the bar are thinking, but he describes them as an observer, distancing himself from their thoughts. . And then, presumably, he could write Modern Poems. But in a critical period such as ours, I do believe that the poet must have direct knowledge of the major political events. Not since Source: Nicholas Jenkins, "Goodbye, 1939," in New Yorker, April 1, 1996, pp.
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