[Know-the-Ledge]

On September the 1st, 1939, the English play-write and poet W.H Auden was in New York, Hitler's forces had just invaded Poland that day and the day is marked in history as the beginning of the 2nd World War.

Auden sat in a decrepit New York street on the side-walk and wrote in a prescient manner a rhapsody which has remarkable parallels to our contemporary situation.


He muses:

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid

He sits on the porch of one of the decrepit buildings on fifty-second street; the building is a haunt and a vestige of a past more prosperopous times. Auden like the rest of the metropolises in which the news of the invasion had spread, is worried. Like many of us are in this modern era as wars and rumours of wars spread causing mass confusion and uncertainty in us.


As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:

The 'clever' hopes he refers to, are those of politicians, the spin and the obfuscation using their sophisiticated speech, Neville Chamberlain waved the peace treaty in London only some time before, but this treaty was now a distant memory. The realisation strikes him, the whole decade had been dishonesty and mis-leading; the invasion had always been inevitable, he resigns to this fate, the past decade had just been a string of low events, one after the other, aggregating into this sad invasion. How many of us feel this is happening today? Have you seen all the low events? What are they leading to?


Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;

the waves of anger and fear, is the public fall-out, people are angry, but fearful. How could such an event be allowed to happen? How could another war be allowed to begin? The brights lands he talks of is those that are speaking for goodness and the darkened lands are those people that are mongering for wars and killing, this tension in the battle of good against evil he writes, is obsessing the talk between friends, familys in private settings.


The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

...


I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

This post has been edited by Know-The-Ledge: 15 December 2011 - 01:17 PM

[Know-the-Ledge]

Oh btw, i'm going to update this thread with this (very long) poem when I can, with my own personal analysis, it's awesome and gets better and better!


(this post i will delete)

[Fatema-the-resplendent]

The explanation reminds me of my English essays! It was always a very self ego boosting exercise of I've got it, you haven't. I used to trampoline my way into the Teachers minds without even being convinced by what I wrote.

I have always found though that such poetry which alludes to events in European history as having little significance to 'us', is very distant and a very white voice. In earlier years I found identification to this type of musing, but now I find the very same poetry to be unallocated junk mail. Maybe because my ideals have shifted and my harmonic conscience now finds solace with the Eastern poets.

Good post by the way. I really enjoyed your deciphering.

[qalam]

Fatema-the-resplendent, on 15 December 2011 - 01:37 PM, said:

The explanation reminds me of my English essays! It was always a very self ego boosting exercise of I've got it, you haven't. I used to trampoline my way into the Teachers minds without even being convinced by what I wrote.

I have always found though that such poetry which alludes to events in European history as having little significance to 'us', is very distant and a very white voice. In earlier years I found identification to this type of musing, but now I find the very same poetry to be unallocated junk mail. Maybe because my ideals have shifted and my harmonic conscience now finds solace with the Eastern poets.

Good post by the way. I really enjoyed your deciphering.

salam

how does the peom allude to western poets - please dare and care to explain your stance.

dr aq

[Know-the-Ledge]

Fatema-the-resplendent, on 15 December 2011 - 01:37 PM, said:

The explanation reminds me of my English essays! It was always a very self ego boosting exercise of I've got it, you haven't. I used to trampoline my way into the Teachers minds without even being convinced by what I wrote.

I have always found though that such poetry which alludes to events in European history as having little significance to 'us', is very distant and a very white voice. In earlier years I found identification to this type of musing, but now I find the very same poetry to be unallocated junk mail. Maybe because my ideals have shifted and my harmonic conscience now finds solace with the Eastern poets.

Good post by the way. I really enjoyed your deciphering.

I love this poem, this was only the opening paragraph, allow it to unravel, it has alot of significance to me, perhaps because beneath my external decroum, lies someone who is capable of sheer monstrosity, but only if the inhibitions of society were removed, or a situation of anarchy was allowed to reign; ther's something so perverse about the male which needs to be tempered. I think Auden does a good job of tempering that barbarity in the congential male nature.

I see what you mean about the subjectivity of it, but then that's the polarity in understanding of different people that gives poetry its diadem, the structure to the wisdom.




Anyway, a joke for people who love literature:

What the author wrote :- The curtains were blue

What I understood :- The curtains represent his immense depression and his unwillingness to carry on

What the author meant : - The curtains were flipping blue yara

This post has been edited by Know-The-Ledge: 15 December 2011 - 01:59 PM

[Fatema-the-resplendent]

Please do, looking forward to it. I love analysis!

As for whatever you meant with monstrosity inside of you, I'll not go there, you see inhibitions reign us in. But it is an ever interesting idea of freedom. I particularly enjoy the 'free bird' imagery and its connotations myself and become incredibly resigned when in reality this can never exist. I do think Poets live in this World where anything can be created and played with. Amazing land of dreams, the mind.

The joke was verrrrrrrry funny, lol.

Br Qalam, I am alluding to western experiences which for me atleast have little attraction because by and large these expereinces have been had by Westerners in a time so long ago. The dark mood of the setting, the loneliness of thought, the contemplation of war, the coldness it all is very reminisicent of a western style of writing, even a very english way. Like Alfred Tennysons tragic and very depressing poems, even yeats and keats. Infact even Jane Austen, Emily Bronte-the emotions are always depressive, cold and tragic. Hope is ususally born out of it but one must go through the dark alley in order to get there. Don't get me wrong I enjoy the read, but sense the greyness of it.

And this is not about me, I want to put the focus back on KTL, let's enjoy his efforts.

[The-Mughal-Sister]

Fatema-the-resplendent, on 15 December 2011 - 02:26 PM, said:

And this is not about me, I want to put the focus back on KTL, let's enjoy his efforts.

Hear Hear! Let's stick to the topic. I'm very much enjoying the flow of the conversation. Qalaam your attention seeking post is thataway

*Exit*<-----------------

lets concentrate on KTL's chosen poems. It's very interesting and allows the mind to explores different angles.

[Malaaikah]

MashAllah bro KTL, we can alll learn alot from your poetry inshAllah.

Keep up the good work!!