Auden’s Advent section in “For the Time Being” captures the pessimism that many feel about the world today. Luckily, the poem moves on to the Christmas promise.
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Tag Archives: W. H. Auden
And the Light Shineth in the Darkness…
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Advent, For the Time Being, refugee crisis, Terrorism Comments closed
Can Poetry Respond Adequately to Evil?
Americans turned to Auden’s “September 1, 1939” following 9-11, and it can inspire and guide us following the Paris terror attacks.
Lit vs. the Evils of History–More Debate
While literature can seem helpless in the face of history’s cataclysms, it proves far more durable than the events that seem to overwhelm it.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alexander the Great, Don Quixote, Homer, Iliad, Miguel de Cervantes, politics Comments closed
The Spurs as Auden’s Unknown Citizen
The San Antonio Spurs as so perfect that they’re boring–like Auden’s “Unknown Citizen.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Unknown Citizen", Basketball, NBA, San Antonio Spurs, Sports Comments closed
A Time of Rare Beasts, Unique Adventures
Spirit may seem less accessible after Christmas is over, Auden tells us, but that means we should focus all the more on seeking it out.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Christmas Oratorio", "Hollow Men", Spirituality, T. S. Eliot Comments closed
The Perfection and Poetry of Tyrants
W. H. Auden’s chilling “Epitaph on a Tyrant” matter-of-factly shows the deadly but seductive simplicity that characterizes dictators like Qaddafi and Assad.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Arab Spring, Bashar al-Assad, Dictators, Muammar Qaddafi, violence Comments closed
Back in the Day, We Parsed Sentences
Time was when grammar was king in the public schools. It didn’t seem to matter whether a student’s writing was interesting but whether it was correct. Then came the “process writing movement” and (in the lower grades) the “creative spelling movement.” The design was to unlock the writing energies that were being stifled by an […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "In Memory of W. B. Yeats", Age of Longing, David Adams Richards, Education, Grammar, Richard Wright Comments closed
A Death Poem Must Acknowledge the Pain
For today’s entry on poems that can come to our aid when we are confronting death, I will be looking at two. In both poems, the speaker has lost a loved one. One of them, which I have known and loved since high school and whose sentiments I agree with, now angers me. The other, […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged death of a child, Funeral Blues, Highland Mary, Robert Burns, Stop All the Clock Comments closed