the profound depictions of idealized paintings.
This is a voice that turns away
W. H. Auden: Poems
Musée des Beaux Arts
First published in 1940, W.H. Auden’s " Musée Des Beaux Arts " examines the
tendency for daily life to continue on its routine course even in the presence of
tragedy and sorrow. More specifically, the poem narrows its focus to The Fall of
Icarus, a 16th century painting by Pieter Brueghel in which the ill-fated Icarus
falls to his death, attracting little notice from those in the immediate vicinity.
Significant as the poem's subject matter may be, Auden complicates its surface
meanings by utilizing the nearly unnoticed presence of its speaker as a poetic
device. In so doing, he creates a nuanced character, one whose voice is
simultaneously disheartened and amazed at ordinary attitudes toward the
ubiquitous presence of suffering. Never referring to itself, this voice
nevertheless creates a self-referential dimension within the poem, adding
shades and textures of meaning beyond the semantic content of the words used
within its construct.
The speaker of "Musée Des Beaux Arts" philosophizes about the images viewed
in paintings at Brussels’ Museum of Fine Arts. Likely, this is a mirror of the poet
himself, who visited the museum in 1938. What deepens the poem’s content,
however, is the way in which Auden crafts this voice to complicate a surface
message, introducing ironic undertones that transform its meanings into a more
complex rendering of human experience. The speaker seems to mourn the
ordinary lack of attention paid to suffering, yet his manner is crafted in the
voice of a man insulated from the travails of ordinary life – a leisurely art
patron, commenting on idealized representations of human life.
Focusing on one word found within the poem, leisurely, it can be demonstrated
how the poet builds his speaker’s voice via the sound of word and line
structures to develop a subtle critique of the mind-set from which the poem
derives its most obvious meaning. In a brief 21 lines, Auden constructs this
voice both as a means to relay the poem's content, and as a method to subtly
explore the manner in which significant traditions of philosophy and artistic
representation frequently derive from, and cater to, the experience and
expectations of a privileged class that is relatively isolated from the
observations being pondered.
Constructing Tone of Voice
In its first two lines (“About suffering they were never wrong, / The Old
Masters”), the poem establishes a musing, conversational tone by inverting the
usual English syntax, moving the specific subject of the verb to the end of the
clause. We can almost picture the far-away eyes of the poem's speaker as he
formulates his thoughts. A vaguely intellectual voice, almost pretentious in
tone, that proceeds to share its ruminations. A voice that is full of self-indulgent
pauses, incorporating full-stops in word choices such as suffering, wrong, or
Masters. A voice that is less an active participant in life than it is a reverent
bystander of the Master's depiction.
Auden's speaker effectively mirrors the self-absorbed pace of mundane human
activity depicted in the poem by emphasizing nonchalance in regard to
momentous events. Throughout, the poet subtly depicts this voice by crafting
long, ponderous sentences that juxtapose brief references to dramatic events
(birth, martyrdom, torture) with ironic images of children skating (when
perhaps one in their midst regrets being born), or domestic animals (including
“the torturer’s horse”) preoccupied with their own physical needs and desires.
In crafting this voice, Auden chooses words that produce long, drawn-out
sounds within the context of their sentences (dreadful, dogs, torturers, falling),
effectively fleshing out the speaker's character by creating leisurely pauses
within his voice.
Creating Ironic Tension
Without explicitly stating the voice's relevance, Auden creates a portrait of his
speaker, one that interacts dynamically with the semantic content of the poem.
It is the voice of a man who, while leisurely pondering artwork, reflects on the
significance of the artists’ depictions and discovers seemingly universal
statements about the human condition. He discerns how these works address
ethical problems of indifference and suffering, yet he speaks in the voice of a
privileged man, isolated in the walls of an equally privileged institution, well-
removed from the suffering of which he speaks.
In a sense, Auden creates a satire of the leisure-class intellectual,
philosophizing about the self-absorbed lives of commoners while remaining a
bystander himself, well-insulated from the travails of ordinary life. The entire
poem builds from the speaker's voice as he derives unhurried sentiments from
“quite leisurely from the disaster” (line 15) to go about its remote business of
philosophizing on the lives of others – those who presumably have no time or
inclination (unlike the speaker) for profound observation and insight.
Poetics of the Unspoken Subtext
Crafting his poem in a manner which deepens and shapes the semantic
meaning of its subject matter by use of non-verbal signifiers like voice and
tone, Auden creates an unspoken subtext to the poem's content. Combined with
other elements, such as enjambment and the rich implications of his chosen
words, he creates a multi-layered poem that more completely represents its
subject matter in its full complexity, moving beyond the specific meaning of
words and sentences into a more complicated realm where the poem's elements
add up to more than the sum of their constituent parts.
In this fashion, "Musée Des Beaux Arts" presents a mirror of it's own content
while simultaneously serving as an ironic critique of its seemingly unspoken of
speaker. How far that critique extends into social commentary, however,
remains in the hands of the reader.
In Memory of W. B. Yeats
W.B Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright whose work was imbued with
ambiguity. In “In Memory of W.B. Yeats”, W.H. Auden writes an elegy to the
death and work of Yeats. Auden is particularly concerned with the relationship
between humans and the impersonal realm of nature. Throughout “In Memory
of W.B. Yeats” Auden personifies nature and weather, juxtaposing it with the
man-made world, and humanizing Yeats’ poetry. This personification serves to
elegize Yeats while simultaneously ushering in a new poet who can transform
society.
Auden anthropomorphizes the poetry of W.B. Yeats in “In Memory of W.B.
Yeats”. Auden writes, “By mourning tongues the death of the poet was kept
from his poems.” (Auden.10) He speaks as if the poems need to be shielded
from the death of their creator. In the second part of “In Memory of W.B. Yeats”
the poetry seems to become mobile as it “survives” (36) and “flows” (38). After
the poet’s death his poetry lives on “in the valley of its saying” (37) and
spreads “south from ranches of isolation and the busy griefs.” (38-39) However,
as Auden makes clear the poems do not move far. Yeats’ poetry is not the type
to make people think or even be remembered for very long. Auden humanizes
the poetry, but he does not make them substantial things. The personification
of Yeats’ poetry immortalizes him, even if he is only remembered, as one would
recall a “slightly unusual” (29) day. A few will remember Yeats, his thoughts
and feelings, because of his poems. However they are not Yeats’ poems alone
now; they are “modified in the guts of the living” (23) and left to the
interpretation of the audience.
The poet soon claims the action of “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” as Auden calls on
a new type of poet to “sing” (72) and “persuade” (69). Auden believes that
poetry has the power to free man from the cell that he has created and the poet
has an “unconstraining voice” (68), which can “teach the free man how to
praise.” (77) Auden lays the “Irish vessel” (44) down in order to make room for
new poets who may produce significant changes to the world. In the mind of
the poet words are a “vineyard” (71) with the capability to make life fruitful and
joyous. They have the potential to change and create, inspire and rouse man.
Auden does not believe that Yeats’ poetry stimulated this change. After his
death Ireland was no different than the day Yeats was born; his poetry is lost
“in the importance and noise of tomorrow.” (24) Auden is heralding a new age
of poetry that has the capability to move “mad Ireland.” (34)
Throughout “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” inanimate objects are acting on nature,
poetry and the poet, or other inanimate objects. The personification of the
weather and water is especially prevalent in this poem: “snow disfigured the
public statues” (3), “brooks” (2), “the peasant river.” (9) By metonymy the
water is meant to symbolize all of nature. Elegies typically declare a poets
death and have nature mourn the man and his work, but Auden merely lists the
weather on the day of his death:
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,

And snow disfigured the public statues;

The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.

O all the instruments agree

The day of his death was a dark cold day. (1-6)

The first part of the poem follows the form of a typical elegy, but it lacks the
traditional importance and solemnity of past elegiac poems. Nature does not
mourn the poet, rather it goes on without interruption: the snow still falls, the
water is still frozen, and the day is still cold. Surprisingly, not even Yeats’
admirers stop at his death. Auden is remarking that though Yeats’ poetry
survived it does not possess the power to change anything. Earlier, Auden
claimed that his “poetry makes nothing happen.” (36) Ireland has changed
Yeats and has made him into the poet that he is. However, Yeats has not
changed Ireland: “Now Ireland has her madness and weather still.” (35) Yeats
and his poems are “scattered”(18) now and Yeats must be content with the
course they may take. His country remains constant while he is laid to rest and
it seems that he has not left an impact. In this elegy the poet is laid to rest, his
poems though still living are only remembered by a few admirers, and it is a
new form of poetry that triumphs.

With the personification of W.B. Yeats’ poems, nature, and the weather Auden
examines the effect that Yeats had on human beings. Through the poetry and
the death of the poet Auden implies that he was just an ordinary man: “silly like
us.” (32) Yeats did not change Ireland and Auden states that few would
remember him, but a new poet will inspire nature and man.

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