Auden’s Indifference to Suffering

W.H. Auden’s collection of poems Another Time include poetry from 1936 to 1940, and in this collection the English poet criticizes the social environment of 20th century Europe - the hardship of the Jewish migration (“Refugee Blues”) to the outbreak of the Second World War (“September 1, 1939”). In these poems Auden shows empathy for Jewish refugees as he renders their plight: “We cannot go here now, my dear, we cannot go there now” (“Refugee Blues,” 6); and the desolation of war: “[…] Uncertain and afraid/ As the clever hopes expire/ Of a low dishonest decade […]” (“September 1, 1939,” 3-5). But there is one poem that starkly contrasts to his social poetry, “Museé ds Beaux Arts.” In this poem Auden uses linguistic elements, poetic devices and allusions to understate the significance of suffering; however, when “Museé des Beaux Arts” is contrasted with his social poems, such as “Refugee Blues,” Auden establishes genuine empathy. ​​

​Diction and syntax work together to create a leisurely atmosphere in the poem. The placid tone in the poem defuses the dramatization of tragic events such as the fall of Icarus, which is later alluded to in the second stanza. Audent writes: “How [suffering] takes place/While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along [...]” (Auden, 2007), and “Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer’s horse/Scratches its innocent behind on a tree” (Auden, 2007). The enjambment and the length of the sentences function to show how the act of suffering gets lost in other daily activities. Using the present progressive tense equates all the actions and makes the act of suffering less significant. “Eating,” “opening a window,” and “walking” are mundane activities, which by association, make suffering a banal activity as well. Auden further punctuates a point on how insignificant suffering can be in the word “dully.“ Dully” means a lack of interest or excitement. You can also notice in this line the usage of assonance - “they,” “dully,” “were,” “while,” and “wrong.” Assonance creates a soft lackadaisical tone that is reflected in the mundane activities. In the second quotation Auden contrasts two seemingly diametrical objects, “doggy life” and “torturer’s horse,” but he is able to remove the tension in the violent connotation in “torturer” with repetition of “dog” and doggy,” a laziness and a deliberate motif to extend the sentence in order for the reader to glide across the phrase. Beginning the line with the conjunction “where” also functions to move readers' attention away from the violent connotations, as conjunctions only grammatically provide asides in a main clause. Auden uses diction and syntax in tandem to create a placid atmosphere in the poem. Together they defuse the tension in pain and suffering found in some connotations. In this poem Auden is seemingly indifferent towards suffering.

In “Museé des Beaux Arts,” elements of linguistics and poetic devices - verb tense, assonance, scansion and conjunction - function together to underscore the subtleties of the message in the poem: that human suffering is not a focal point in daily life. Auden writes that “[suffering] takes place/While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along [...]” (3-4). Contrasting the word “suffering” to daily activities softens the dramatization in its connotation. Already the elements of language displace the emotionally charged word. The present progressive verb tense - in “suffering,” “eating,” “opening” and “walking” - are used to describe actions happening simultaneously. Suffering is not the center of details in this sentence. Phonetically, as well, the present progressive form lends a leisurely sound through the repetition of “ing,” especially when it is compounded with the assonance from the pronunciation of the long-vowel and short-vowel sounds in ee in “eating,” o in “opening,” and “ah” in “walking.” Furthermore, contrasting the scansion of the fourth line with the first three preceding lines phonetically further removes the impact of the word “suffering.” Line four is the longest line in the entire poem with twenty-two syllables. Lines one to three consistently have ten syllables with caesuras - the colon and semicolons - which allow the reader to gain his breath and understanding while reading the poem out loud: “About suffering they were never wrong/ The Old Masters: how well they understood/ Its human position; how it takes place [...]” The fourth line doubles the length in comparison to the preceding sentences, making the line difficult to recite in one breath, further removing the dramatization of “suffering” from its connotation. The reader is focused on the list of the other activities. At this point, too, “suffering” becomes “it”; physically the word is not “suffering.” In a sentence that wishes to move the reader away from the concept of suffering, Auden achieves it linguistically. Yet perhaps to stake a point Auden uses allusions to illustrate the insignificance of suffering. 
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“Museé ds Beaux Arts” alludes to Dutch Renaissance painter Pieter Brueghel and his painting, oil on canvas, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (See Fig.1), to show the insignificance of suffering, which can be found at the beginning of the second second stanza: “In Brueghel’s Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away/ Quite leisurely from the disaster [...]” (14-15). Icarus is a tragic Greek character who displays the folly of hubris in his attempt to fly too close to the sun after escaping from the minotaur’s labyrinth on the Island of Crete (“Icarus”) and falls into the ocean drowning to death. Auden uses Icarus’ death in Bruegel’s painting to remove the dramatization of death by contrasting Icarus’ fall with other subjects in the artwork that seem to ignore the incident - “the ploughman may have heard the splash [...]” (15) and “[...] the expensive delicate ship [...] had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on” (19-21). The elements of visual arts seem to further capture Auden’s disinterest in human turmoil among the daily activities. There is a motif of unclarity in the artwork. First, seemingly there are several objects in the poem that can potentially be the subjects - the shepherd, sheep, ploughman, horse, and ship - according to their visibility. They either contrast starkly to dark backdrops to make them appear brighter, such as the shepherd, or they are physically larger, such as the ploughman and the ship. Icarus is not visible despite the fact that his name is in the title of the artwork. The spectator must search for his legs at the bottom corner of the painting. Furthermore, the potential subjects in the painting face westward and away from Icarus. Their body language shows that Icarus’ death is meaningless. Even the lines, specifically ones that make the staircase by the ploughman, flow away from the incident. Lastly, the focal point in the artwork is also unclear. The focal point in the artwork is on the horizon line by the contrast of the dark sea to the light. The glowing area at the top right of the artwork draws the spectator’s attention near the Island of Crete, and again, not on Icarus. Even the title of the artwork devalues Icarus’ death - Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. The title begins with the name “landscape,” a common noun, making it the subject of the artwork. The usage of “with” along with Icarus’ further makes the Greek character subordinate to the landscape. The artwork emphasizes Auden’s central theme in the poem, and that human suffering is not dramatic, especially among daily life. ​

Fig.1 Peter Bruegel. Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (1555). Oil on canvas. 28.9 x 44.1”. Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels, Belgium.

However, we need to consider that “Museé ds Beaux Arts” is included in the same collection of poetry as his social poems, such as “Refugee Blues.” Contrasting the two poems is part of the reader’s experience, and by contrasting them, Auden establishes a true sense of suffering and genuine empathy. “Refugee Blues” employs the elements of poetry more strictly compared to “Museé des Beaux Arts.” Aesthetics creates “memorable speech,”  and in Auden’s introduction to The Poet’s Tongue, co-authored with John Garrett, “That is to say, [memorable speech] must move our emotions, or excite our intellect, for only that which is moving or exciting is memorable, and the stimulus is the audible spoken word and cadence, to which in all its power of suggestion and incantation we must surrender, as we do when talking to an intimate friend” (“Poetry as Memorable Speech” 825); aesthetics or stricter usage of poetic devices allows the artist to engage more emotionally and psychologically with the subject - and in this case with the hardship of the Jewish migration during Adolf Hitler’s reign in Europe. As the title references, Auden uses elements of the American song genre Blues in the poem. Blues was created by African Americans to describe the hardship of the South after the Civil War (“blues”). Some stylistic choices from blues used in the poem are the simple rhyme scheme, melancholic tone and the suffering of the subject in the song; and they can be seen utilized in the following stanza: “Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;/ It was Hitler over Europe, saying, ‘They must die’;/ O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind” (16-18). The plain language and the colloquialism appeal to commoners and the lower class. The grammar structure is elementary with the subject-verb-object form - “It was Hitler over Europe,” “they must die” and “we were in his mind.” Auden follows speech patterns rather than grammatical sentences, retreating from elitism, by beginning the sentence with “Thought I heard [...]” The exclamatory “O” is another signifier for speech, one which expresses sorrow.  Using plain language and speech patterns, Auden’s appeals to the lower class Jewish community who were isolated in ghettos during this period (“ghettos”). Another element of the blues is the tercet in the rhymes “sky,” die,” and “mind.” The rhyme is a clear element of music, and it is the poetic device or “memorable speech” that “move[s] our emotions,” establishing intimacy with the Jewish migrants. In fact, “Refugee Blues” originally just appeared in a collection of poems titled “songs” (Charters & Charters 952).  “Refugee Blues” strictly employs poetic or musical conventions to establish intimacy with the subject - the Jewish migrants. Meanwhile, “Museé des Beaux Arts” deliberately lacks aesthetics or form to illustrate a concept. “Museé des Beaux Arts” employs free verse to create a leisurely tone in the poem, which disallows the reader from empathizing with the fictional character’s death. Although poetic devices and deliberate usage of linguistic elements are found in the poem, they merely serve Auden’s message in the poem, not to create empathy for the subject. 

Auden writes “Museé ds Beaux Arts” and “Refugee Blues” as political tensions rise in Europe. In 1937 Auden moves to Spain to join the civil war out of passion (Charters & Charters 952). Although he does not participate in the civil war, for he is “disturbed by loyalists”  and he migrates to the United States (Charters & Charters 952), Auden is aware of the human turmoil in Europe. The diametrical opposing poems “Museé des Beaux Arts” and “Refugee Blues” function in tandem to crystalize Auden’s sense of empathy through aesthetics. He shows more craft in his poetry towards those who are suffering at the hands of reality than he does when he entertains consolations.

​- John Tang, 10 October 2021​

References
​
Anne Charters and Sam Charters. Literature and Its Writers, 4th Ed. edited by Anne Charters 
and Sam Charters, Bedford St. Martins, 2007, pp.952

Auden, W.H. “Museé ds Beaux Arts.” Literature and Its Writers, 4th Ed. edited by Anne 
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--- “Refugee Blues.” Literature and Its Writers, 4th Ed. edited by Anne Charters and 
Sam Charters, Bedford St. Martins, 2007, pp. 953-954

Auden, W.H. “September 1, 1939.” The Norton Anthology English Literature: The Twentieth and 
Twenty-first Centuries. 10th Ed. Stephen Greenblatt, Norton & Company, Inc., 2018, pp. 
818-821

Auden and Garret J. “Poetry as Memorable Speech.” The Norton Anthology English Literature: 
The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. 10th Ed. Stephen Greenblatt, Norton & 
Company, Inc., 2018, pp. 825

Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "blues". Encyclopedia Britannica, 22 Jul. 2021, 
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Bruegel, Peter. Landscape with the Fall of Icarus. 1555. Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium, 
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“Ghettos.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 4 December 2019. 
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