1) Which lines of 'September 1, 1939' you liked the most? Why?
“We must love one another or die.”
The famous line from stanza eight, ‘We must love one another or die,’ has become proverbial, often quoted by people who have no idea where it comes from. A strange irony is that Auden himself, within a few years after the poem’s composition, came to dislike it. In his first Collected Poems, published in 1944, he reprinted ‘September 1, 1939’ minus the eighth stanza, which must have disappointed readers who were looking for what they regarded as its profoundest line. In later collections of his poetry, Auden dropped the whole poem and always refused permission for its inclusion in new anthologies; it was not reprinted until after his death, in the volume noted above. Auden decided that the famous line about love and death was untruthful; he remarked, in public and in private, that we are all destined to die, whether or not we love each other.
2) What is so special about 'In Memory of W B Yeats'?
‘In Memory of W. B. Yeats’ by W. H. Auden (1907-73) was written in 1939, following the death of the Irish poet W. B. Yeats in January of that year.
In Memory of W. B. Yeats, by W.H. Auden is a modern poem in its imagery, concept and versification. The poem, as its title indicates, is an elegy written to mourn the death of W.B. Yeats, but it is different from the conventional elegy. Traditionally, in an elegy, all nature is represented as mourning the death, here nature is represented as going on its course indifferent and unaffected.
The great poet's death goes unnoticed both by man and nature: human life goes on as usual, and so does nature. Secondly, in the traditional elegy the dead is glorified and his death is said to be a great loss for mankind at large. But Auden does not glorify Yeats. He goes to the extent of calling him 'silly' and further that his poetry could make nothing happen. "Ireland has her madness and her weather still." Thus, Auden reverses the traditional elegiac values and treats them ironically. Although, apparently the poem is an elegy, Auden reverses and departs from the known traditions of elegy.
3) Is there any contemporary relevance of 'Epitaph on a Tyrant'?
‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’ is one of Auden’s short masterpieces. In just six lines, W. H. Auden (1907-73) manages to say so much about the nature of tyranny.
We can find so many tyrants like Adolf Hitler nowadays. Who wants power, money and wants to create utopia and his own world or country. We can find so many leaders who are purely called tyrants in contemporary times.
For Example
Dronald Trump:
With the spread of political violence in the United States, and growing extremism in the 2016 presidential election, the comparison between Trump and tyrant like Hitler has become unavoidable. Both Hitler and Trump were masters of mass communication. Hitler mastered beer hall oration, then newspapers, and then the new medium of radio. Donald Trump mastered television and then was one of the first leaders to master Twitter and other social media.
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