WEBVTT

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Professor Langdon
Hammer: Second Auden

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lecture.
I was reading last time from

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poems from the '30s,
those love poems:

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"Lay Your Sleeping Head,
My Love," and "This Lunar

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Beauty."
The ballad that I read for you,

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"As I Walked Out One Evening,"
also a poem about love,

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also comes from the later '30s.

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It is collected though in this
book called Another Time,

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a book Auden published in 1940.

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And I wanted to,
well, let's see,

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I'm afraid I've got my order
all mixed up here.

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I wanted to show you just the
table of contents of this book

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because it has a number of
masterpieces in it that you are

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reading.
It's also significant that it's

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organized in the way that it is.

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The first section is called,
humbly I guess or practically,

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"People and Places" and it
includes in it the poem I'll be

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discussing shortly,
"Musée des Beaux Arts."

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There're another couple of
sections, a section called

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"Lighter Poems" that includes
all kinds of song forms:

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"Refugee Blues,"
different kinds of blues,

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and some kind of Gothic,
satirical ballads – "Miss

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Gee,"
"James Honeyman" – poems that

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are antecedents for a song like
"Maxwell's Silver Hammer."

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This is the kind of thing Auden
was writing.

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And then there's also something
else called "Occasional Poems,"

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and in this box Auden has put
"Spain 1937,"

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that great political poem from
the Civil War,

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and these poems that I'll be
discussing today:

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"In Memory of W.B.

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Yeats" and "In Memory of
Sigmund Freud."

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I wanted to call attention to
this book, first of all because

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it shows us these poems embedded
in the actual context in which

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they first appeared,
but also to point out the way

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in which Auden has organized his
book.

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That is to say,
he has thought of his poems as

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belonging to specific categories
and placed them accordingly.

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And they have different genres,
different forms suitable to

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different purposes and
occasions.

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And this is very much the way
in which Auden imagines himself

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as a poet, I think,
that is, someone writing with a

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kind of technical mastery with
access to a whole repertoire of

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traditional forms which are
suitable to different purposes

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and different occasions.

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This general perspective on his
work is related to the topic

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that I introduced in discussing
"As I Walked Out One Evening,"

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and that is the whole question
of perspective in Auden.

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You remember I talked about how
that poem seems to include,

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well, at least three different
perspectives:

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that is,
the quoted song of the lover

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who tells his beloved that he
will love her until the end of

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time;
then, there's the voice of the

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clocks who speak from the point
of view of time and correct his

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claims;
and then finally there's a kind

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of narrative voice that seems to
frame the whole thing with that

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image of the river running on.

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As in that poem,
Auden seems to be able to

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incorporate in his poetry
multiple perspectives,

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each of which comment on or are
framed or conditioned by the

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others, but each of which has
its independent truth,

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you could say.
This is a topic that we'll

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explore more today looking at
other poems.

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I wanted to show you some
photographs.

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In the 1930s during the
Japanese-Chinese War,

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a prelude to the Second World
War,

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Auden went with his friend
Christopher Isherwood to China

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and they created a book together
called Journey to a War

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which includes Isherwood's prose
and Auden's poetry.

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It's quite a remarkable book.

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It also includes photographs
which are presented in an

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interesting way.
We have here two different

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photographs of boys,
boys who are classified here as

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"soldiers" and "civilians" and
then grimly are identified as

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"with legs" and "without."

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There's a kind of interest in
these photographs and in their

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presentation of how--in the ways
in which in war who we are is a

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matter of perspective and point
of view.

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The war gave Auden and
Isherwood an opportunity to

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experience what it was like to
be on the ground when planes are

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overhead bombing you,
and here's one photograph of

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that condition.
And here is another

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illustration of this general
point I wanted to make.

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There are unidentified corpses
under blankets there.

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There are then scattered human
remains and debris.

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And the one photograph is
identified as "The Innocent" and

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the other as "The Guilty."

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Well, the great poem on this
general theme in Auden's work is

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"Musée des Beaux Arts."

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It is a poem that Auden wrote
after returning from China in

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December, I believe,
1938, contemplating a return to

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the United States where he had
visited a short time before,

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contemplating,
in fact, expatriation;

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also, contemplating an imminent
war, a world war that would

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extend the horror that he had
witnessed in China to all of

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Europe and beyond.

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Suffering, in other words,
was on his mind,

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and it's the subject,
or rather, art's relation to

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suffering is the subject of this
poem.

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The poem has as its occasion a
visit to the Musée des Beaux

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Art in Brussels where Auden saw
among other works this painting,

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"The Fall of Icarus," that is
painted by Pieter Brueghel.

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This and other Brueghels are
referred to in the course of the

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poem which proceeds almost as a
kind of imaginary gallery tour

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or walk in which Auden as our
companion takes us to different

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works and contemplates their
commentary on the general issue

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that he is raising here:
what is art's relation to

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suffering?
About suffering they were

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never wrong,
The Old Masters:

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how well they understood
Its human position [he's

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concerned with how you position
suffering in

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human life, and he's taking
Brueghel as a model];

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how it takes place
While someone else is eating or

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opening a window or just walking
dully

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along [as this line of poetry
itself seems to];

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How, when the aged are
reverently, passionately waiting

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For the miraculous birth [now
he's contemplating a Nativity

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scene], there
must always be

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Children who did not specially
want it to happen,

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skating
On a pond at the edge of the

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wood:
They never forgot [the old

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masters]
That even the dreadful

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martyrdom [and now he's looking
at Brueghel's

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painting "The Massacre of the
Innocents"]

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must run its course
Anyhow in a corner,

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some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their

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doggy life and the torturer's
horse [no

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more innocent or guilty than
those boys, I suppose]

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Scratches its innocent behind
on a tree.

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The Old Masters know the human
position of suffering,

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its position in human life.

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"Position" is important;
it's an important word for

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Auden here.
He's concerned with how

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experience is placed.

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Sometimes he calls this
geography.

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It is a topos,
a motif, and an idea in his

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poetry that Elizabeth Bishop
will take over quite directly

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from him and develop and make
central to her poetry.

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The idea is that things have
meaning in relation to,

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in their connection with,
but also their separation from

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each other.
Suffering is part,

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but only a part and not the
center of human life,

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a repertoire of actions and
conditions and states of being

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that is much larger.

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In Brueghel,
in his "Massacre of the

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Innocents" – I won't try to
find it now among my slides for

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you--Auden focuses on the
"torturer's horse,"

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the animal that is part of the
scene and that motivated by an

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itch, scratches its behind while
the dreadful martyrdom runs its

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course.
In this poem,

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as in other Auden poems,
note the prose rhythms.

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The poem does seem to at times
walk dully along.

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Auden, like Moore,
is writing in an expository

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manner, I guess an essayistic
manner.

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This is part of the tone of the
poem.

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Auden is getting into his
poetry a kind of neo-classical,

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eighteenth-century aesthetic,
an ability to talk about ideas

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in poetry in,
again, a discursive,

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expository manner that includes
humor and that is

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matter-of-fact,
is observant.

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Pain, like the tears that I
talked about last time that had

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dried on Auden's pages,
pain is part of the picture,

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but it is just a part.

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It's, in a sense,
been put aside.

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All of this is a function of
what I'm calling Auden's

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perspectivism.
Any scene borders on other

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scenes where other people are
positioned looking at the same

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thing differently or not looking
at it at all.

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And this is one of the themes
of the second section of the

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poem where Auden specifically
describes this painting.

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He says: In Brueghel's
Icarus,

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for instance….
And this is a poetry in which

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the poet says "for instance,"
just as Moore might have said

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"however."
how everything turns away

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Quite leisurely from the
disaster….

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And he's talking about the
shepherd who's looking up to the

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sky, he's talking about the
ploughman who has his back

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turned to the fall;
and where is it?

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It's hard probably for you to
see, but it's hard to find in

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any case because this dramatic
event that is the center of

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Brueghel's pictures – in fact,
these bare legs disappearing

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into the sea as the overreaching
son of Daedalus plunges into the

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water – is not at all in the
center of the picture.

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how everything turns away
[Auden observes]

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Quite leisurely from the
disaster;

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the ploughman may
Have heard the splash,

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the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an

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important failure.…
He's not concerned with flying

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to or beyond the sun.

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For him the sun merely shines,
it helps him cultivate the

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land.
the sun shone [of

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necessity]
As it had to on the white legs

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disappearing into the green
Water [the white legs

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disappearing into the green
water];

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and the expensive delicate ship
that must have seen

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Something amazing,
a boy falling out of the sky,

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Had somewhere to get to and
sailed calmly on.

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Well, here Auden wasn't
thinking about Hart Crane,

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but he might have been.

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It's almost as if this figure
has leaped off the back of the

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boat, as Crane did.

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He is, however,
thinking, I suppose,

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about romanticism in general
and its ambitions.

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Here, the sun shines as it had
to.

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What it illuminates are white
legs.

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There's a kind of objectivity
in that, there's a kind of

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naturalism.
It shines on green water.

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It's as if from a certain
perspective, from the

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perspective of aesthetic form,
these elements of the picture

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are merely elements of the
picture – colors,

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which have meaning as they are
placed in a system of

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relationships and a system of
perspectives.

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Well, there's a great deal more
to be said about this painting.

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I think one idea that is worth
emphasizing is the way in which

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the ploughman,
in Auden's account as in

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Brueghel's painting,
has prominence,

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has a greater prominence than
the heroic,

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romantic figure plunging into
the sea.

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The ploughman is going about
his ordinary daily work,

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and as he turns these furrows,
we are reminded,

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as Auden surely was reminded,
of the ancient classical

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connection between verse –
meaning the turning,

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in Latin, from one line to
another – and the shaping

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action of the plough that
creates these furrows in the

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earth,
committing the poet,

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as he identifies with the
ploughman, to a kind of poetry

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of craft and of the earth that
involves,

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in a sense, turning away from
disaster.

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Well, this poem was written in
Europe.

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It is a poem that Auden – let
me find this picture here –

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with which Auden,
in a sense, turns his back on

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Europe and, for the moment at
least, the imminent world war.

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He comes to the United States;
he immigrates to the United

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States in January 1939.

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This personal turning point in
a poetic career comes at a

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moment when the world is about
to be split in war.

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It also comes at a significant
moment in literary history when

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Yeats dies, and Auden recognizes
this occasion as a moment to

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celebrate the poet,
contemplate the achievement in

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modern poetry that he represents
Yeats and, in a sense,

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provide a kind of epitaph for a
poetry now in the past and

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behind us that positions Auden
in the present.

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Let's look at the view of Yeats
and of Yeats's poetry that

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emerges here.
The poem extends the questions

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of "Musée des Beaux Arts" by
asking not so much what is art's

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relation to suffering as what is
the place of art in society

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generally,
or poetry in particular?

20:50.380 --> 20:54.070
Auden begins:
He disappeared in the

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dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen,

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the air-ports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public

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statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth

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of the dying day.

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Oh, all the instruments agree
The day of his death was a dark

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cold day.
There's a sense,

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as Auden elaborates these
ideas, that natural science is

21:26.380 --> 21:34.590
here mocking the pathetic
fallacy that all nature should

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mourn when the poet dies and
reflect the grief of this event.

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He's saying,
Auden is, it was a cold day and

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we had instruments to measure it
and that that's what it was,

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in a kind of factual way.

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He continues, Auden does:

21:59.280 --> 22:02.680


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Now he [Yeats]
is scattered among a hundred

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cities
And wholly given over to

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unfamiliar affections….

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…
The words of a dead man

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Are modified in the guts of the
living.

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Yeats is passed on to us.

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And yet to whom has he passed
on?

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What difference does he make?

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Auden doesn't want us to make
the mistake of thinking that

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Yeats is too central a figure,
that he matters too much.

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But in the importance and
noise of to-morrow [he

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continues]
When the brokers are roaring

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like beasts on the floor of the
Bourse,

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And the poor have the
sufferings to which they are

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fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself

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is almost convinced of his
freedom;

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A few thousand will think of
this day

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As one thinks of a day when one
did something slightly

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unusual.
This is an attempt to,

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in some sense,
place poetry realistically in

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culture.
It doesn't matter to the

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brokers "roaring like beasts on
the floor of the Bourse."

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It doesn't matter to the poor
who have their suffering "to

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which they are fairly
accustomed."

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It matters, well,
perhaps to "a few thousand"

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people, not a negligible number
but not a large one either.

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There's a kind of modesty in
Auden's claims for Yeats,

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for poetry.
You could contrast Pound at the

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same time as this poem is being
written, broadcasting his ideas

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on Fascist radio,
or you could think about

23:51.462 --> 23:55.802
Stevens at the same time
dreaming up a poem he will call

23:55.800 --> 23:58.640
"Notes Toward a Supreme
Fiction."

23:58.640 --> 24:04.700
This is a rather different
claim for what poetry might do.

24:04.700 --> 24:07.810
It returns to a theme of The
Waste Land.

24:07.809 --> 24:13.379
Somehow, the world that Auden
is describing is one in which we

24:13.379 --> 24:17.669
are each imprisoned in the cell
of ourselves,

24:17.670 --> 24:26.220
recalling the locked chambers
of Eliot's poem.

24:26.220 --> 24:34.800
In the second section,
Auden moves to address Yeats

24:34.801 --> 24:38.561
directly.
Now Yeats has,

24:38.559 --> 24:46.699
in a sense, claimed for us his
difference, the vatic powers of

24:46.704 --> 24:52.984
language, the visionary
ambition, and the occult

24:52.980 --> 24:57.680
learning.
All of that that would

24:57.679 --> 25:03.979
distinguish and separate him
from us is put aside,

25:03.982 --> 25:09.772
and what he shares with us is
emphasized:

25:09.769 --> 25:16.799
You were silly like us
[silly]: your gift survived it

25:16.802 --> 25:18.982
all;
[it had to survive a lot,

25:18.984 --> 25:22.624
it had to survive]
The parish of rich women,

25:22.622 --> 25:25.262
[who doted on him,
his own]

25:25.256 --> 25:32.016
physical decay,
Yourself [himself; Auden says];

25:32.019 --> 25:34.769
mad Ireland hurt you into
poetry.

25:34.769 --> 25:38.699
Now Ireland has her madness and
her weather still [you did not

25:38.697 --> 25:43.147
affect it,
you did not affect it because

25:43.147 --> 25:46.827
you are a man and only a man.

25:46.825 --> 25:50.575
In fact],
For poetry makes nothing

25:50.584 --> 25:55.994
happen.…
This is one of the most quoted

25:55.991 --> 26:03.331
sentences in modern poetry:
"poetry makes nothing happen."

26:03.329 --> 26:09.339
It is almost always quoted,
however, out of context.

26:09.340 --> 26:12.570
It is part of a long sentence.

26:12.569 --> 26:18.389
It comes first as a
qualification on what Yeats,

26:18.388 --> 26:24.328
on the difference Yeats has
made in the world.

26:24.329 --> 26:27.619
Auden's saying in a sense,
no, you haven't made a

26:27.618 --> 26:30.768
difference, for poetry makes
nothing happen.

26:30.769 --> 26:34.759
But the poem continues then,
the sentence continues.

26:34.759 --> 26:40.629
Auden says, (colon):
"it survives."

26:40.630 --> 26:44.160
"…Poetry makes nothing
happen: it survives."

26:44.160 --> 26:46.450
Where?
It survives:

26:46.450 --> 26:50.410
In the valley of its
saying where executives

26:50.410 --> 26:54.130
Would never want to tamper,
it flows south

26:54.130 --> 26:58.200
From ranches of isolation and
the busy griefs,

26:58.200 --> 27:02.250
Raw towns that we believe and
die in;

27:02.250 --> 27:06.780
it survives,
A way of happening,

27:06.775 --> 27:12.695
a mouth.
Poetry doesn't make things

27:12.700 --> 27:15.650
happen.
It has a different kind of

27:15.654 --> 27:18.224
action.
It survives;

27:18.220 --> 27:20.980
it lasts.
How does it last,

27:20.983 --> 27:22.203
where does it last?

27:22.200 --> 27:26.850
It lasts "in the valley of its
saying," a kind of imaginary

27:26.853 --> 27:31.513
landscape or a kind of world
that is created through speech

27:31.507 --> 27:34.347
here.
"The valley of its saying":

27:34.349 --> 27:38.899
perhaps a rich place to live
but also a space that evokes a

27:38.903 --> 27:41.733
kind of absence or hollow,
right?

27:41.730 --> 27:46.970
Or a kind of opening perhaps,
or a gap.

27:46.970 --> 27:57.460
As Auden develops this idea the
poetry becomes what he calls "a

27:57.462 --> 28:02.372
way of happening,
a mouth."

28:02.369 --> 28:07.039
And then that valley is
refigured as a mouth – an open

28:07.040 --> 28:10.780
mouth, I'm sure,
a mouth open where words are

28:10.776 --> 28:15.826
coming out,
where more words will follow

28:15.827 --> 28:20.007
and flow like a kind of river.

28:20.009 --> 28:23.749
Poetry, in that sense,
doesn't make anything happen.

28:23.750 --> 28:27.340
It is rather a way of
happening, that is,

28:27.341 --> 28:31.561
a kind of method or model,
a path or discipline:

28:31.562 --> 28:35.382
a way.
Not a deed, but something more

28:35.379 --> 28:41.319
like the symbol of a deed or the
figure of a kind of potential

28:41.316 --> 28:45.326
action,
a nothing that is somehow

28:45.326 --> 28:48.966
something, too,
again, I think,

28:48.969 --> 28:53.219
an image implying an open
mouth;

28:53.220 --> 28:58.130
that is, the mouth of a river
or the mouth of a poet,

28:58.125 --> 29:01.045
through which language flows.

29:01.050 --> 29:05.200


29:05.200 --> 29:12.350
Then the poem moves into,
I think, a kind of illustration

29:12.354 --> 29:18.364
of the kind of action that
poetry engages in,

29:18.359 --> 29:24.119
and that comes with the
movement into these ceremonial

29:24.120 --> 29:29.120
quatrains in iambic tetrameter,
essentially.

29:29.120 --> 29:30.050
Is that what it is?

29:30.049 --> 29:36.069
Well, it's definitely a
tetrameter.

29:36.070 --> 29:40.770
The rhyme enters.

29:40.769 --> 29:47.189
The prose rhythms of the poem
up to now give way to a kind of

29:47.192 --> 29:50.192
ceremonial lyric language.

29:50.190 --> 29:59.390
Here poetry is identified with
praise and with prayer.

29:59.390 --> 30:07.260
The poem gives us a kind of
performative language of human

30:07.257 --> 30:15.677
ceremony that honors Yeats,
that lays him to rest and yet

30:15.683 --> 30:25.143
also absorbs and affirms the
power of poetry that was in him.

30:25.140 --> 30:28.070
Earth,
receive an honoured guest;

30:28.070 --> 30:31.040
William Yeats is laid to rest.

30:31.040 --> 30:39.760
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

30:39.759 --> 30:50.619
Auden goes on to describe the
way that time will honor poetry

30:50.617 --> 30:57.497
and will honor Yeats;
that time will even,

30:57.496 --> 31:05.376
he says – Auden does –
forgive Yeats for the right-wing

31:05.376 --> 31:12.846
politics that Yeats's later
career is marked by and that

31:12.847 --> 31:21.267
Auden separates himself from and
needs to come to terms with in

31:21.270 --> 31:24.930
this poem.
He says:

31:24.930 --> 31:27.090
Time with this strange
excuse

31:27.090 --> 31:31.190
Pardoned Kipling and his views,
And will pardon Paul Claudel

31:31.187 --> 31:35.697
[Kipling, for his imperial
jingoism, Claudel

31:35.700 --> 31:43.580
for his proto-Fascist ideas],
Pardons him [Yeats also]

31:43.575 --> 31:48.775
for writing well.
Auden, looking back on this

31:48.782 --> 31:54.962
poem, would ask himself,
how could I possibly presume to

31:54.960 --> 32:01.250
judge Yeats and forgive him
morally for his politics?

32:01.250 --> 32:08.160
And he struck these
condescending lines from his

32:08.160 --> 32:11.250
poem.
So, you won't find them in

32:11.247 --> 32:16.147
The Collected Poems but
you will find the powerful lines

32:16.152 --> 32:18.212
that proceed from them.

32:18.210 --> 32:20.390
In the nightmare of the
dark

32:20.390 --> 32:24.600
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,

32:24.600 --> 32:30.890
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace

32:30.890 --> 32:35.270
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie

32:35.269 --> 32:37.859
Locked and frozen in each
eye.

32:37.860 --> 32:41.750


32:41.750 --> 32:45.230
What does the poet do in this
condition?

32:45.230 --> 32:51.360
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the

32:51.355 --> 32:57.405
night….
The poet descends and descends

32:57.412 --> 33:07.002
into night, a night that is this
nightmare in which Europe barks,

33:06.996 --> 33:10.886
ready to attack itself.

33:10.890 --> 33:12.990
With your unconstraining
voice

33:12.990 --> 33:20.500
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse

33:20.498 --> 33:25.498
[and remember the ploughman now,
as a figure for the poet]

33:25.500 --> 33:30.310
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess

33:30.310 --> 33:34.720
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart

33:34.720 --> 33:40.140
Let the healing fountains start,
In the prison of his days

33:40.140 --> 33:43.900
Teach the free man how to
praise.

33:43.900 --> 33:45.970
This is what poetry can offer.

33:45.970 --> 33:52.210
It can offer a lesson in how to
praise.

33:52.210 --> 33:58.280
This is not making something
happen politically in the world,

33:58.281 --> 34:03.651
perhaps, but it's making
something happen in the heart

34:03.645 --> 34:09.615
and perhaps within the eye of
each of us who look locked and

34:09.616 --> 34:14.896
staring with our pity,
frozen there.

34:14.900 --> 34:23.060
Poetry would be a kind of
farming in the desert of the

34:23.058 --> 34:32.598
heart that would break open that
which is locked there and free

34:32.602 --> 34:37.312
feeling.
It's a powerful and very

34:37.307 --> 34:42.187
traditional claim for what poems
can do.

34:42.190 --> 34:47.300
And in talking about The
Waste Land,

34:47.295 --> 34:54.465
I stressed the ways in which
Eliot sought language of public

34:54.468 --> 35:01.028
ritual that might join people
separated in the cells of

35:01.033 --> 35:05.413
themselves.
Here, Auden is working through

35:05.409 --> 35:10.179
the same ideas and providing a
kind of model for how that might

35:10.184 --> 35:15.144
work.
Let me turn ahead with you to

35:15.137 --> 35:23.657
another great poem from this
period, "In Memory of Sigmund

35:23.664 --> 35:29.804
Freud."
Freud is a kind of ploughman.

35:29.800 --> 35:34.440
He is another model for the
poet, for Auden.

35:34.440 --> 35:40.850
And this poem proposes still
other ways to understand

35:40.845 --> 35:47.985
poetry's relation to suffering,
represented here by Freud's

35:47.989 --> 35:52.669
humanistic, therapeutic
technique.

35:52.670 --> 35:55.840
What sort of hero is Freud?

35:55.840 --> 36:01.340
Auden calls him "an important
Jew who died in exile."

36:01.340 --> 36:06.890
It's significant that he is
called that by Auden at this

36:06.891 --> 36:10.281
moment.
If you look for the figure of

36:10.275 --> 36:15.565
the Jew in "Gerontion," Eliot's
early poem, you'll see that the

36:15.567 --> 36:19.917
figure is not dignified with a
capital J.

36:19.920 --> 36:26.270
Anti-Semitism is a crisis in
Europe and it's certainly a

36:26.268 --> 36:30.538
pervasive current in modern
poetry.

36:30.539 --> 36:36.819
Whether it is actually a theme
or a motif, as it appears in

36:36.823 --> 36:41.373
Eliot or Pound,
or simply a kind of voluble

36:41.374 --> 36:47.554
prejudice as you would find it
in Williams's letters,

36:47.550 --> 36:51.180
anti-Semitism is powerful.

36:51.179 --> 36:58.479
And here, Auden is identifying
himself with Freud as a Jew and

36:58.484 --> 37:00.884
as a Jew in exile.

37:00.880 --> 37:08.280
And it seems as though Freud in
this way represents a figure for

37:08.277 --> 37:14.967
people who are in some sense
extracted from the nation and

37:14.971 --> 37:20.491
who are international in their
perspective.

37:20.489 --> 37:28.089
And Auden himself is writing in
America from a similar point of

37:28.091 --> 37:30.771
view.
As in the Yeats elegy,

37:30.772 --> 37:34.342
Auden is reluctant to single
Freud out when,

37:34.335 --> 37:39.385
as he says, death is so common
and suffering is so common.

37:39.389 --> 37:44.829
But Freud's point of view for
Auden is powerful and valuable

37:44.833 --> 37:50.283
precisely because it emphasizes
the commonplaceness of human

37:50.276 --> 37:52.856
suffering, its ubiquity.

37:52.860 --> 37:57.530


37:57.530 --> 38:03.150
He's praised – Freud is –
as the poem unfolds,

38:03.145 --> 38:10.245
specifically for the ways in
which he responds to suffering.

38:10.250 --> 38:14.990
How does he do it?

38:14.989 --> 38:23.529
Well, around line 28 or so,
on page 804,

38:23.533 --> 38:28.823
Auden says:
All that he did was to

38:28.824 --> 38:33.864
remember
Like the old and be honest like

38:33.857 --> 38:37.587
children.
He wasn't clever at all [he was

38:37.590 --> 38:39.930
silly like us]:
he merely told

38:39.929 --> 38:42.329
The unhappy Present to recite
the Past

38:42.330 --> 38:48.570
Like a poetry lesson till sooner
Or later it faltered at the

38:48.572 --> 38:51.502
line where
Long ago the accusations had

38:51.500 --> 38:54.490
begun,
And suddenly knew by whom it

38:54.487 --> 38:58.587
had been judged,
How rich life had been and how

38:58.589 --> 39:03.419
silly [there's that word again],
And was life-forgiven and more

39:03.417 --> 39:05.987
humble,
…

39:05.989 --> 39:10.389
No wonder the ancient cultures
of conceit

39:10.389 --> 39:13.649
In his technique of
unsettlement [that's what he

39:13.646 --> 39:17.936
(Auden) calls Freud's
therapeutic technique,

39:17.939 --> 39:22.359
the talking cure:
it's a technique of

39:22.356 --> 39:26.256
unsettlement]
The fall of princes,

39:26.258 --> 39:29.388
the collapse of
Their lucrative patterns of

39:29.389 --> 39:31.779
frustration.
If he had succeeded [Freud],

39:31.783 --> 39:34.473
why, the Generalised Life
Would become impossible,

39:34.474 --> 39:37.264
the monolith
Of State be broken and prevented

39:37.260 --> 39:40.560
The co-operation of avengers.

39:40.559 --> 39:47.509
Of course they called on God
[his (Freud's) detractors]:

39:47.511 --> 39:52.101
but he went his
way [like the poet who follows

39:52.096 --> 39:54.936
right to the bottom of the
night],

39:54.940 --> 39:57.670
Down among the Lost People like
Dante, down

39:57.670 --> 40:00.290
To the stinking fosse where the
injured

40:00.289 --> 40:03.109
Lead the ugly life of the
rejected.

40:03.110 --> 40:07.020
And showed us what evil is:
not as we thought

40:07.019 --> 40:10.109
Deeds that must be punished,
but our lack of faith,

40:10.110 --> 40:15.890
Our dishonest mood of denial,
The concupiscence of the

40:15.888 --> 40:26.178
oppressor.
Auden emphasizes Freud's

40:26.182 --> 40:33.222
literary dimensions.

40:33.219 --> 40:37.889
The talking cure is like a
poetry lesson.

40:37.889 --> 40:44.999
It puts faith in speech,
in the powers of true speech,

40:44.996 --> 40:51.026
to correct and reshape and heal
human life.

40:51.030 --> 40:56.700
It is a technique of
unsettlement that is a threat to

40:56.701 --> 41:03.211
princes, all worldly authority,
because it questions authority

41:03.214 --> 41:08.664
and empowers the individual
speaker to take life into his

41:08.655 --> 41:12.225
hands.
Like Dante or like Pound's

41:12.230 --> 41:18.150
Ulysses in Canto I,
like the poet at the end of the

41:18.151 --> 41:22.171
Yeats elegy,
Freud, in Auden's poem,

41:22.169 --> 41:28.369
goes down among the lost people
and goes into "the stinking

41:28.370 --> 41:31.410
fosse,"
which is a powerful word.

41:31.409 --> 41:37.399
It's a word that appears in
Canto I where Ulysses,

41:37.396 --> 41:41.776
Pound's Ulysses,
goes to seek Tiresias.

41:41.780 --> 41:44.330
"Fosse," it's an Anglo-Saxon
word.

41:44.329 --> 41:48.469
It reaches back,
in that sense,

41:48.469 --> 41:56.749
in cultural history to suggest
that our present misery is one

41:56.748 --> 42:02.818
with, continuous with,
that of the past.

42:02.820 --> 42:10.080
And yet history is something
here that can be intervened in,

42:10.082 --> 42:16.982
in an individual way through
the kind of true speech that

42:16.975 --> 42:24.725
Auden celebrates in Freud and
that he aspires to in poetry.

42:24.730 --> 42:35.110
As the elegy builds towards its
conclusion, on page 806,

42:35.105 --> 42:40.005
again the night appears.

42:40.010 --> 42:44.050
Freud:
… would have us

42:44.045 --> 42:46.985
remember most of all
To be enthusiastic over the

42:46.994 --> 42:50.184
night [and its lost people,
ourselves]

42:50.180 --> 42:55.380
Not only for the sense of wonder
It alone has to offer [night,

42:55.381 --> 42:58.251
the unconscious],
but also

42:58.250 --> 43:03.420
Because it needs our love:
for with sad eyes

43:03.420 --> 43:06.430
Its delectable creatures look
up and beg

43:06.429 --> 43:09.859
Us dumbly to ask them to
follow….

43:09.860 --> 43:15.960
That is, all the properties
here of the unconscious that are

43:15.964 --> 43:21.864
identified at the same time with
all those who are lost in

43:21.862 --> 43:27.142
society and need to be
represented and claimed.

43:27.140 --> 43:31.070
They are, like Freud:
…exiles who long for

43:31.070 --> 43:35.110
the future
That lies in our power.

43:35.110 --> 43:39.140
[Again a power of speech.]
They too would rejoice

43:39.139 --> 43:42.089
If allowed to serve
enlightenment like him [like

43:42.085 --> 43:45.255
Freud],
Even to bear our cry of "Judas,"

43:45.260 --> 43:49.600
As he did and all must bear who
serve it.

43:49.599 --> 43:59.409
Freud here is in exile,
and he brings insight but he

43:59.406 --> 44:03.056
also brings love.

44:03.059 --> 44:08.659
Auden is imagining a kind of
general state of homelessness,

44:08.660 --> 44:13.780
which Freud's technique of
unsettlement isn't meant to

44:13.778 --> 44:19.858
redress but rather to recognize
and accept and help us adjust to

44:19.861 --> 44:25.181
and live in.
Auden's own technique here

44:25.179 --> 44:32.199
is--well, his verse form is a
simple syllable count:

44:32.199 --> 44:35.779
11 syllables,
11 syllables,

44:35.779 --> 44:38.669
9 syllables,
10.

44:38.670 --> 44:43.620
The normative ten-syllable line
comes last and fourth and gives

44:43.617 --> 44:46.807
a kind of resolution to each
quatrain.

44:46.809 --> 44:50.219
This simple pattern,
again, accommodates and

44:50.222 --> 44:54.712
promotes a kind of prose speech,
a kind of ordinariness that

44:54.705 --> 44:58.475
identifies Freud's work and the
poet's work with a kind of

44:58.476 --> 45:02.126
ordinary,
ongoing work and that

45:02.128 --> 45:08.118
accommodates rationality in a
rational voice,

45:08.117 --> 45:13.967
as Auden will describe Freud's
as being,

45:13.969 --> 45:20.179
and yet also accommodates
feeling at the same time and

45:20.177 --> 45:22.517
accommodates love.

45:22.519 --> 45:28.189
One rational voice is
dumb [Freud's,

45:28.189 --> 45:33.719
he's silent]:
over a grave [his grave]

45:33.719 --> 45:40.379
The household of Impulse mourns
one dearly loved [because he

45:40.380 --> 45:45.010
understood how to love our
impulses].

45:45.010 --> 45:50.550
Sad is Eros, builder of cities,
And weeping anarchic

45:50.551 --> 45:58.651
Aphrodite.
It's eventually a powerful,

45:58.648 --> 46:03.058
moving conclusion.

46:03.059 --> 46:08.249
Eros and Aphrodite have lost
their champion.

46:08.250 --> 46:13.430
I'm going to conclude by
commenting very quickly,

46:13.429 --> 46:18.949
since we're almost out of time,
on one last poem,

46:18.954 --> 46:25.084
arguably Auden's greatest,
"In Praise of Limestone," a

46:25.078 --> 46:30.968
poem written from the
perspective of the post-war in

46:30.972 --> 46:36.842
the United States,
but about a kind of imaginary

46:36.835 --> 46:43.905
landscape that combines elements
of his childhood – a landscape

46:43.910 --> 46:50.210
in northern England – and the
Italian landscape where he

46:50.210 --> 46:57.170
returned in the post-War period
and became increasingly attached

46:57.174 --> 47:01.884
to.
It is a kind of allegorical

47:01.881 --> 47:09.751
space and it represents a home,
I suppose, for the homeless,

47:09.750 --> 47:16.820
for we, "the inconstant ones,"
as he describes us.

47:16.820 --> 47:20.990
It is, this limestone
landscape, something to be

47:20.994 --> 47:24.374
praised, and it is a poem of
praise.

47:24.369 --> 47:31.439
It is an image of the world
without another transcendental

47:31.438 --> 47:34.908
world beyond or behind it.

47:34.909 --> 47:39.439
To be in the world,
as described in this poem,

47:39.441 --> 47:43.471
is to be in an entirely earthly
realm.

47:43.469 --> 47:49.789
And again, you might think of
the ploughman turning away from

47:49.785 --> 47:56.095
the over-reacher who tried to
fly to the sky and turns rather

47:56.100 --> 48:00.810
to the earth.
It is a landscape like that of

48:00.813 --> 48:03.643
Stevens in "Sunday Morning."

48:03.639 --> 48:12.099
It is a landscape that Auden
can only describe as a kind of

48:12.099 --> 48:19.829
imaginary place through
counter-factual statements.

48:19.830 --> 48:26.150
It is porous.
It's rich, it's fertile,

48:26.145 --> 48:27.855
and it's moderate.

48:27.860 --> 48:32.620
It is not a place of extremes;
and hermits and Caesars;

48:32.620 --> 48:33.900
they don't belong here.

48:33.900 --> 48:35.830
They go elsewhere.

48:35.829 --> 48:43.129
It's rather a place in which
ordinary life and ordinary

48:43.127 --> 48:45.827
people might live.

48:45.829 --> 48:51.549
The very end of the poem is
extremely powerful because it

48:51.550 --> 48:56.250
looks towards a kind of redeemed
human life,

48:56.250 --> 49:02.660
sees it in this landscape,
and yet represents it in the

49:02.658 --> 49:07.568
conditional.
Auden says--this is on page

49:07.568 --> 49:11.308
808:
In so far as we have to

49:11.314 --> 49:15.094
look forward
To death as a fact [something

49:15.092 --> 49:18.602
he will never let us forget],
no doubt we

49:18.600 --> 49:24.000
are right: But if
Sins can be forgiven,

49:24.000 --> 49:28.210
if bodies rise from the dead
[and you note the

49:28.210 --> 49:33.430
conditional in both phrases],
These modifications of matter

49:33.430 --> 49:36.560
into
Innocent athletes [the people

49:36.560 --> 49:39.940
that he peoples this landscape
with]

49:39.940 --> 49:41.660
and
gesticulating fountains,

49:41.659 --> 49:46.199
Made solely for pleasure,
make a further point:

49:46.199 --> 49:50.119
The blessed will not care what
angle they are regarded from,

49:50.120 --> 49:52.050
Having nothing to hide.

49:52.050 --> 49:58.470
Dear [and now he speaks to a
beloved], I know

49:58.470 --> 50:01.060
nothing of
Either [that is,

50:01.057 --> 50:06.237
what it would mean to be
blessed or to have nothing to

50:06.239 --> 50:09.379
hide: I know nothing of either
of those things],

50:09.381 --> 50:12.131
but when I try to imagine a
faultless love

50:12.130 --> 50:16.950
Or the life to come,
what I hear is the murmur

50:16.949 --> 50:21.199
Of underground streams,
what I see is a limestone

50:21.204 --> 50:25.294
landscape.
A landscape that is Auden's

50:25.286 --> 50:30.536
version of an earthly paradise
and our only image of these

50:30.536 --> 50:32.466
ultimate promises.

50:32.469 --> 50:39.359
Auden manages somehow here to
make us see and feel what the

50:39.356 --> 50:44.986
life to come might be like,
what it might be like to be

50:44.992 --> 50:49.052
blessed, while still
acknowledging that we can only

50:49.054 --> 50:53.444
live in and be in and speak in
the world before us,

50:53.440 --> 50:59.340
which is the one that Auden
remains, throughout his poetry,

50:59.343 --> 51:05.713
dedicated to.
Well, we'll go on to a poet

51:05.708 --> 51:14.128
closely identified with Auden,
Elizabeth Bishop,

51:14.132 --> 51:17.002
on Wednesday.