Here is a link to an interesting blog posting on Auden's poem 'Spain'. It gives some extra background, which may help you understand the context better. It then discusses many of the points that came up in our class discussion today. For the author, "'Spain' is indeed, as some of you suggested, "the most reluctant of political poems", yet as he also recognises, it "still compels by its potency". He makes some interesting arguments, too, regarding the source of that potency. He also makes reference to Auden's poem 'In memory of W. B. Yeats', the poem we shall look at tomorrow. The
Norton anthology website also has a section on Auden's poem on Yeats, with some other links you might find interesting.
And here is Picasso's painting, 'Guernica', which depicts the bombing of the Spanish town by fascist forces (more information - in Turkish! -
here). Click on the image to see a larger version. Like 'Spain', 'Guernica' was completed in 1937, and was intended (at least in part) to serve an expressly political end, drawing attention to fascist atrocities and encouraging support for the Republican cause.
well, i didn't enjoy the poem. don't know y. as we suggested maybe it felt lazy and low in the tone, plastic in the feelings, inadequate to reflect the energy to fight against the other side etc...
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear that 'Spain' didn't appeal. What about 'In memory of W. B. Yeats', written only a few years later, but arguably by a very different Auden? Or 'Musee des Beaux Arts'? More on Auden to follow.
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