What Do You Mean By The Lines Written By W.H. Auden In The First Stanza? "The Sense Of Danger Must Not..."?

From Languages Forum:

What do you mean by the lines written by W.H. Auden in the first stanza? "The sense of danger must not..."? I want to know the meaning of the following lines written by W.H. Auden: "The sense of danger must not disappear The way is certainly both short and steep However gradual it looks from here Look if you like, but you will have to leap"

Answer: It means that we should be daring and never lose the sense of danger. People tend to want safety and security, but there's the danger of becoming lazy and complacent. You know the saying, "Look before you leap?" In other words, be careful. This poem is called "Leap Before You Look" -- be afraid, but never stop taking chances. Live life on the edge. It would be interesting to find out when he wrote this poem and what prompted him to write it. Here's the entire poem: http://pages.prodigy.net/maecooper/poetry/leap.html

Where In To days Society Do You Think Identity Is Compromised?

From Other - Cultures & Groups Forum:

Where in to days society do you think Identity is compromised? I'm writ ting an essay on W.H. Au dens poem "the unknown citizen" and want to relate to to days modern society and its compromised identity . What do you think? give reason as well into why you think its compromised.

Answer: The Unknown Citizen is a poem by W. H. Auden. It was published in 1939 in The New Yorker, shortly after Auden became an American citizen, and was first published in book form in 1940, in Auden's collection Another Time. It is the epitaph of a man, identified only by a combination of letters and numbers ("JS/07/M/378"), who is described entirely in external terms: from the point of view of government organizations such as the fictional "Bureau of Statistics." The speaker of the poem concludes that the man had lived an entirely average, therefore exemplary, life. The poem is a satire of standardization at the expense of individualism.[1] The poem is implicitly the work of a government agency at some point in the future, when modern trend bureaucratizing trends have reached the point where citizens are known by arbitrary numbers and letters, not personal names. [edit] Interpretation By describing the "average citizen" through the eyes of various government organizations, the poem criticizes standardization, and the modern state's relationship with its citizens. The last lines of the poem dismiss the questions of whether he was "free" or "happy", implicitly because the statistical methods used by the state to describe his life have no means of understanding such questions. The epigraph to "Unknown Citizen" is a parody of the symbolic Tomb of the Unknown Soldier commemorating unidentified soldiers; tombs of unknown soldiers were first created following the first World War.[2]

Does Anyone Have A Poem That Is A Clear Example Of Brecht'S Influence On Auden?

From Poetry Forum:

Does anyone have a poem that is a clear example of Brecht's influence on Auden? I just really need a poem that can show how Brecht's style of writing influenced Auden's. I read in an on line encyclopedia article that Brecht made Auden write more dramatically. So maybe any dramatic poems written by W H Auden after 1928(ish) ?

Answer: The most Breaching piece of Auden's is The Dance of Death,_ his drama of 1933, in which Karl Marx comes in directly. It's also written in the music-hall-like, popular Breaching mode. Don't think it's Auden's best work, but it's Breaching. Elements of Brecht work into The Dog Beneath the Skunk,_ the best of the plays he wrote with Christopher Isherwood.

Who Was The Greatest British Writer Of The Th Century ?

From Books & Authors Forum:

Who was the greatest British writer of the Th Century ? Playwrights such as Harold Pinter, poets such as Philip Lark in and W.H. Auden as well as novelists like Anthony Burgess etc but who do you think is the greatest?

Answer: Agatha Christie

How Does This Poem Relate In Terms Of Theme To Death Of A Salesman?

From Books & Authors Forum:

how does this poem relate in terms of theme to Death of a Salesman? The Average by W.H. Auden His peasant parents killed themselves with toil To let their darling leave a stingy soil For any of those smart professions which Encourage shallow breathing, and grow rich. The pressure of their fond ambition made Their shy and country-loving child afraid No sensible career was good enough, Only a hero could deserve such love. So here he was without maps or supplies, A hundred miles from any decent town; The desert glared into his blood-shot eyes; The silence roared displeasure: looking down, He saw the shadow of an Average Man Attempting the exceptional, and ran.

Answer: The Average Man knows that he cannot succeed at doing the task. Whatever he is trying to do is something that only a hero or a champion is capable of, and that is not him. The last three sentences are about him realizing that he is going to fail, and when he knows that he will, he gives up. In Death of a Salesman, Willy Lo man is an average man who also realizes that he has never been the champion either. The problem is that Willy has always fooled everyone into thinking that is a hero, and in the end he *cannot* accept that he is a loser. So he kills himself, believing that in doing so he will achieve the kind of fame that he desperately wants.

Where Can I Find Credible Critical Essays On Well Known Poets?

From Poetry Forum:

Where can I find credible critical essays on well known poets? I need to find critical essays on the poet w.h. Auden done by people of credible sources with a name (one well known that is) can anyone help me out?

Answer: try http://product.half.ebay.com/_W0QQprZ846546QQtgZinfo

Does Anyone Have A Really Touching And Sad Poem?

From Poetry Forum:

Does anyone have a really touching and sad poem? My friend and I are going to perform a poem in English class on Wednesday. We want a really emotional and deep poem that will inspire people or touch their feelings, if you know what I mean. At first we chose ''Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone'' by W. H. Auden, but unfortunately someone in class had already chosen that one. Can someone please help me find a really good one? Thank you!

Answer: arcticcat You want a professional poets poem or just a normal sulfa like me. Lil. This one is a true story. It needs to be worked on and edited, but you out to take this one in and say it is by someone famous. They will probably like it until you tell them it's from an amateur. Good luck :) Thomas _____________________________________________ What Could I Have Done? I knew a man from work in the insurance business. He was a good, kind man, was also a perfection-ness. Once I couldn’t sleep, went in at AM, he was there Any time I stayed late, he was the last to leave, to be fair. Years went by and it was the same ole thing Until our peripheral lives began to sing, What changed is I saw him at lunch every day Sat outside on the front terrace to say-- “Hello Bari, How have you been doin?” “Good” I said,moved along and stew-in Next day would come and he’s out eating his lunch. “Hi Bri” “Hi Bob” All he wants is to talk was my hunch. Several weeks went by with this same display I walk in from lunch and wave him away So many times he tried to engage No way, thought I, self absorbed to the page. Until one day he was gone a couple weeks I heard Nervous breakdown the rumor per a little bird Several weeks later he was back in the fold Refreshed and ready to go we were sold Till one day it happened still etched in my mind I came in from lunch empty veranda I find Walk into the atrium and see all the people Look up and up as high as a steeple Sitting on the ledge was my co-worker Bob Fix-in to leap from a life he would rob. I pondered getting to the Th floor to talk but knew time was short so don’t run, just walk He looked down at me as he started to stand “Don’t do this Bob” as I gave out my hand It’s too late he said as he stood and sway I yelled to him NO as I silently pray HE THEN ~~~JUMPED~~~ ___________________________________________________

Can Someone Help Explain This Poem To Me A Little Better?

From Poetry Forum:

Can someone help explain this poem to me a little better? For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives In the valley of its making where executives would never want to tamper, flows on south from ranches of isolation and the busy griefs, raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives, a way of happening, a mouth. This is actually just a small part of W.H. Auden's poem "In Memory of W.B. Yeats". Can someone please help explain what he is trying to say to me? Like what does he mean by "For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives"?

Answer: when it comes to explicating poetry I am not the best but here is what I think poetry can document events, it tells stories and those stories of events can be heard around the world and "survive" through generation "flows on" "survives" "mouth" -lasts through generations or can be made anywhere others wise spark notes it

Which Book Of W.H. Auden Contains : We Are All Here On Earth To Help Others..."?

From Books & Authors Forum:

Which book of W.H. Auden contains : We are all here on earth to help others..."? We are all here on earth to help others. What I can't figure out is what the others are here for." —W. H. Auden Does somebody know in which book he published that? I need it for bibliographical reference.

Answer: You can see this question addressed by Edward Mendel son, Auden's executor and biographer, at the link: http://www.audensociety.org/vivianfoster.html You'll see that the quotation did not originate with Auden. (You will also see a cite to the page in Auden's collected prose where the quotation appears -- but that's less helpful in looking for the piece in which it appeared before it was collected. It was a review of a biography of W.B. Yeats.)

Could Someone Tell Me How I Would Read A Certain Part Of A Poem?

From Poetry Forum:

Could someone tell me how I would read a certain part of a poem? I have to read the poem "The Unknown Citizen" by W. H. Auden out loud in one of my classes, and I don't know how to read/pronounce a certain part. It's the first line: "(To JS/07 M 378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)." How would I read the "JS/07 M 378" part?

Answer: I would bureaucratic out "To Jay Essa slash aught seven Em three seven eight" (not three hundred seventy eight)

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