W. H. Auden

 English poet, playwright, critic, and librettist W(ystan) H(ugh) Auden exerted a major influence on the poetry of the twentieth century. Auden grew up in Birmingham, England and was known for his extraordinary intellect and wit. His first book, Poems, was published in 1930 with the help of T.S. Eliot. Just before World War II broke out, Auden emigrated to the United States where he met the poet Chester Kallman who became his lifelong lover. Auden won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for The Age of Anxiety. Much of his poetry is concerned with moral issues and evidences a strong political, social, and psychological context. While the teachings of Marx and Freud weighed heavily in his early work, they later gave way to religious and spiritual influences. Some critics have called Auden an “antiromantic”—a poet of analytical clarity who sought for order, for universal patterns of human existence. Auden’s poetry is considered versatile and inventive, ranging from the tersely epigrammatic to book-length verse, and incorporating a vast range of scientific knowledge. Throughout his career, he collaborated with Christopher Isherwood and Louis MacNeice, and also frequently joined with Chester Kallman to create libretti for musical works by Benjamin Britten, Igor Stravinsky, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 

Refugee Blues,Poem by W.H. Auden Analysis.

 Say this city has ten million souls,

Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:

Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,

Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:

We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,

Every spring it blossoms anew:

Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

The consul banged the table and said,

"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":

But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;

Asked me politely to return next year:

But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;

"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":

He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

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.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,

Saw a door opened and a cat let in:

But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.

Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,

Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:

Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;

They had no politicians and sang at their ease:

They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,

A thousand windows and a thousand doors:

Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;

Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:

Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

1) As you read in the introduction, the poem was written half a year before the outbreak of World War II. However, the reader can pinpoint the three major protagonists whose paths will cross tragically in the course of the war. Complete the following sentences:

a) The victims are the… German Jewish people. 

b) The perpetrators are the… Nazis leaded by Hitler

c) The bystanders are the… countries of whole Europe.

2) What particular factors led an individual to be defined as belonging to this or that group?

The religion this person followed and believed in, his race, “political” posture and nationality.

These factors could basically put you in three different groups or sides.

The Nazi’s side.

The Jewish people group.

Or the most of European countries side.

3) Of the three groups, which was the largest? Is their any connection between your answer and the term ‘The Silent Majority’?

Of these three groups definitely the largest was the European group, and this is directly connected with “The Silent Majority” term because this group was the most passive group, even to the point of doing nothing to stop the Jewish people suffering, until they where attacked.

4) What possible relationships could have developed between the victims and the bystanders?

A relationship business, because some of the European countries saw the persecution against the Jews as an opportunity to have a low cost manpower.

Most of the times there didn’t exist a relationship between them because most of European countries didn’t wanted to relate with Jews.

This didn’t occurred in all cases but it is a very probable type of relationship they could get.

5) Auden presents different situations in which prohibitions against the victims multiply and effectively turn them into refugees. Identify and list some of these prohibitions. What does it mean to have these things taken away from you?

Some of this prohibitions was that they couldn’t leave the country, another prohibition was that they wasn’t accepted in any home and in lots of cases they were homeless “Saw a door opened and a cat let in: But they weren’t German Jews my dear…” and finally they were also prohibited to say their will “saw the birds in the trees, they had no politicians and they sang at their ease: They weren’t the human race, my dear…”

In my personal perspective if I couldn’t say what I think or feel without being executed it would be something really hard to endure for me, and if we add it the fact that they were constantly persecuted, it really made a tremendous task to find reasons to continue living.

6) State bureaucracies are crucial in the lives of ordinary citizens, not to mention threatened population groups like the homeless or people evicted from their homes. Identify the different functionaries or objects that represent bureaucracies for Auden.

For Auden the functionaries of bureaucracies were the people in charge of renew the passports to the Jews, so that way they could be considered citizens, also the consul who demanded the passport “If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead” and the endless committees. And the clearest object that represent this were the passports.

7) In your opinion, who is a refugee? Can one become a refugee in one’s own home?

 

A refugee is someone that is not accepted by anyone is his environment, and it is constantly attacked, so the best this person can do is to hide or to repel from the members of that environment.

I think that they may be people that can actually feel like a refugee in his own home, it depends a lot in the context we see it. In the case of Jews they could felt they were refugees in his own home, their home country.

8) How can state bureaucracies help refugees or hinder efforts to help?

Bureaucracies could really help refugees by giving them an economical support, like a place to live in for homeless people, or medical assistance, for drugged people, and in the case of the Jews bureaucracies could help them for example by renewing them their passports. But they did exactly the opposite by sending them to endless committees, so they could never became citizens.

9) In your opinion, should governments today have the responsibility to take care of refugees in their country?

Alternatively, what is the role of society in absorbing refugees? Think of schools, sports clubs, the scout movement and other organizations in your country.

In my opinion is a compulsory responsibility of governments to take care of this issues because at some point we are guilty of this, however I think is a moral responsibility for society to do something to change this and it has to be something voluntary, except for public schools, in fact I think that there should be a state agency in charge of searching homeless kids to put them into an educational environment because education is the best way in which we can extinguish this problem.