[LINK] ANTHEM FOR DOOMED YOUTH - WILFRED OWEN

http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/owen2.html

First Verse: What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Last Verse: And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

What is Defamiliarization? - Artistic Technique - Audience - Common Things - Unfamiliar ways

Defamiliarization or ostranenie (остранение) is the artistic technique of forcing the audience to see common things in an unfamiliar or strange way, in order to enhance perception of the familiar. A basic satirical tactic, it is a central concept of 20th century art, ranging
over movements including Dada, postmodernism, epic theatre, and science fiction.

LITERARY TERMS - web.cn.edu

[A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [J] [K] [L] [M]

[N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] [V] [W] [X] [Y] [Z]

http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms.html

LITERARY TERMS - Wikipedia

Contents A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Order of The Theban Plays by Sophocles = Solve the mystery once for all.

"In the timeline of the plays, the events of Oedipus at Colonus occur after Oedipus the King and before Antigone; however, it was chronologically the last of Sophocles' three Theban plays to be written." Wiki

So here is the order of the story:
1. Oedipus the King
2. Oedipus at Colonus
3. Antigone

Now order of the writing:
1. Antigone
2. Oedipus The King
3. Oedipus at Colonus

Google it! The Pre-Socratic Philosophers: 4 (Anaxagoras, End)

If you are interested in philosophies.

AJAX PERFORM BY YOUTUBERS!

Ajax (1/3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiuS5qvpTVg
Ajax (2/3) www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsfFNkKNXzE
Ajax (3/3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb2Sn5ZhByc

Complete Syllabus of "Greek Tragedy" by University of Cincinnati

http://classics.uc.edu/~johnson/tragedy/#syllabus

What is a Motif? - shoreline.edu

"Motif

This term has a number of definitions, but as I'll be using it here, it means an element that repeats throughout the story, and in so doing carries additional significance beyond its literal meaning. Motifs can take different forms:

• images (a tree that the character sees repeatedly, perhaps in different seasons, conveying ideas about growth, death, rebirth),
• words or phrases (something a character or the narrator repeats, with different connotations at different times),
• places (the character keeps coming back to a certain place, or remembering the place)
• events (an exam that several characters have to take at different points in the story)
• ideas (the narrator keeps referring to, say, the idea of reincarnation)"

Source: http://www.shoreline.edu/doldham/202/html/formal.htm

"Money: There's nothing in the world so demoralizing as money."

Sophocles, Antigone

Creon: How dreadful it is when the right judge judges wrong! - Sophocles, Antigone

"The quotation is from Sophocles tragedy,Antigone. In summary,Creon
the king and tragic hero, has ordered that Antigone's brother must
remain unburied because he acted as an enemy of the State.
Antigone,out of familial loyalty to her brother, flouts Creon's order.
As a result, and despite entreaties for mercy, Creon orders that
Antigone she be entombed alive as punishment. In an excess of pride,
Creon's "tragic flaw," he proclaims: "My voice is the one voice giving
orders in this city! The state is the king. That much is sure!" Later,
following Aristotle's theory of Tragedy, Creon has a moment of insight
or realization ("Anagnorisis") that he has erred: " How dreadful it is
when the right judge judges wrong."

This is what the quotation means in the context of Sophocles' tragedy.
Taken in isolation, the quotation can mean many things, including what
has already been suggested."

Source: Other Explanations here
http://forum.thefreedictionary.com/postst16872_How-dreadful-it-is-when-the-right-judge-judges-wrong-.aspx

Site with Sophocles in it "sophocles.net/'

http://sophocles.net/

Poetry magazine - Editor Christian Wiman

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poetry_%28magazine%29

Poetry, published in Chicago, Illinois since 1912, is one of the
leading monthly poetry journals in the English-speaking world.
Published by the Poetry Foundation and currently edited by Christian
Wiman, the magazine has a circulation of 30,000 and prints 300 poems
per year[1] out of approximately 100,000 submissions[2]. It is
sometimes referred to as Poetry--Chicago.

Poetry has been financed since 2003 with a $200 million grant from Ruth Lilly.

BANKNOTES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banknote

Commentary: WH Auden, GA Auden and psychosomatic aetiology

Source: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/31/6/1137.full

WH Auden was also fascinated with psychology, and particularly with psychosomatic disease. During recuperation for an operation for a rectal fissure in 1930 WH Auden started writing a 'textbook of psychology in doggerel verses', in which sexual guilt was equated with ill health:Love your cock
Stand a shock
Hate your cock
Soon a crock⁷

"I don’t know when the shitstorm of failed marriage took off."

Poem can be read at: https://www.aprweb.org/poem/marriage-pants
Poet: Matthew Lippman
Title of Poem: Marriage Pants
First line/verse: "I don't know when the shitstorm of failed marriage  took off."

Analyze a Poem In Steps

See a video on how to analyze a poem in steps:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcR0--zs9bM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebd-0bjUjZk&NR=1

Google Search:
How to analyze a poem step by step

Do a search yourself on Google and see a Presentation on How to Analyze a poem in steps:
Six Steps to Help Analyze a Poem ppt
(In the above search a presentation will come up)

Some random links on the same topic - Analyzing poem:
If you have more links to share, use the comment section below
http://www.expenglish.com/vb/showthread.php?t=4566
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110612142233AAaMjQT

Spoken Verse. Youtube it.

Great channel.

"Timeline of British History from 1930's onwards"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_British_history_(1930–1949)

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005248.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/timeline/worldwars_timeline_noflash.shtml

"Good Poets Borrow, Great Poets Steal" T S Eliot

Sources:

1. An Unseemly Man: My Life as Pornographer, Pundit, and Social Outcast By Larry Flynt, Kenneth Ross
2. Understanding Romeo and Juliet: a student casebook to issues, sources, and ... By Alan Hager
3. Perspectives of Roman poetry: a classics symposium - Published for the College of Humanities and the College of Fine Arts of the University of Texas at Austin by the University of Texas Press, 1974 - History - 160 pages

Bull Sh*t

"Life is Bull Sh*t, but amazingly it is this life we tend to enjoy too. It makes me think that being in Sh*t in not that bad, actually, But it is!" - ask War Poets (WP) like Auden with his school boyish surrealist attitude that can devour the saint out of you and still being a saint-like persona that it would carry till the end.

Aeschylus Agamemnon (1983 TV) 8-10

Instead of me getting into trouble. Google it and enjoy it!

Now this is something direct Agamemnon - in facts -

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/agamemnon.html

What do I mean facts? Just crazily simple written piece about Agamemnon.

Russian Revolution 1917 | Kipling | | Wilfred Owen | Sassoon | Brooke | Stalin

Russian Revolution - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_(1917)#Timeline_1914.E2.80.931916

 

Rudyard Kipling:

http://www.ontalink.com/literature/rudyard_kipling/

 

"The White Man's Burden" is a poem by the English poet Rudyard Kipling. It was originally published in the popular magazine McClure's in 1899, with the subtitle The United States and the Philippine Islands

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_White_Man's_Burden#cite_ref-source_0-0

 

Individual Poems:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling_bibliography

 

Wilfred Owen:

 

Wilfred Owen

Born (18 March 1893)
Oswestry, Shropshire, England Died 4 November 1918 (aged 25)
Sambre–Oise Canal, France Nationality English Period First World War Genres War poem

---

Influences

       Siegfried Sassoon, John Keats Horace

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen

 

"Strange Meeting".

 

Prior to the outbreak of World War I, he worked as a private tutor teaching English and French at the Berlitz School of Languages in Bordeaux, France.

 

Owen is regarded by historians as the leading poet of the First World War, known for his war poetry on the horrors of trench and gas warfare.

 

The Romantic poets Keats and Shelley influenced much of Owen's early writing and poetry.

 

His great friend, the poet Siegfried Sassoon, later had a profound effect on Owen's poetic voice, and Owen's most famous poems

 

Only five of Owen's poems had been published before his death, one of which was in fragmentary form. His best known poems include "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility", "Dulce Et Decorum Est", "The Parable of the Old Men and the Young" and "Strange Meeting". Some of his poems feature in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem.

 

The Long Trail Poem Text:

http://www.thelongtrail.org/longtrail.html

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-long-trail/

 

Wilfred Owen by greatly influenced by Sassoon his friend.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siegfried_Sassoon

 

 

Siegfried Sassoon (May 1915)
by George Charles Beresford Born 8 September 1886
Matfield, Kent, England Died 1 September 1967 (aged 80)
Heytesbury, Wiltshire Occupation Soldier, Poet, Diarist, Memoirist, Journalist Nationality British Period Early 20th century Genres Poetry, Fiction, Biography Notable work(s) The Complete Memoirs of George Sherston

---

Influences

·                                 E. M. Forster, Henry Vaughan, Robert Graves, Edmund Gosse, Thomas Hardy

---

Influenced

·                                 Wilfred Owen, Edmund Blunden, Robert Graves

---

Signature

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Brooke

 

Rupert Brooke

 

 

Born 3 August 1887
Rugby, Warwickshire, England Died 23 April 1915 (aged 27)
Aegean Sea, off the island of Skyros Cause of death Sepsis Resting place Skyros, Greece Nationality English Education Rugby School, King's College, University of Cambridge (fellow) Occupation Poet Employer Sidgwick and Jackson (Publisher) Known for Poetry

 

Brooke belonged to another literary group known as the Georgian Poets and was one of the most important of the Dymock poets

 

A manuscript copy of Owen's Anthem for Doomed Youth containing Sassoon's handwritten amendments survives as testimony to the extent of his influence and is currently on display at London's Imperial War Museum.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

 

Joseph Stalin

Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин

Georgian: იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე სტალინი

 

Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, July 1945.

 

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878^[1] – 5 March 1953) was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as the top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.

 

Search for:

Inclusive Verse

Definitive Verse

DO YOU KNOW THE STORY OF THE VERY FIRST ENGLISH COMEDY?

(Source: Wikipedia - Ralph_Roister_Doister)

If not here goes.

"The plot of the play centres on a wealthy widow, Christian Custance, who is betrothed to Gawyn Goodluck, a merchant. Ralph Roister Doister is prompted by a friend to woo Christian Custance but his pompous attempts do not succeed. Ralph then tries with his friends to break in and take Christian Custance by force but they are defeated by her servants and run away. The merchant Gawyn arrives shortly after and the play concludes happily."

What is the/Name the - first comedy to be written in the English language?

Ralph Roister Doister is a comic play by Nicholas Udall, generally regarded as the first comedy to be written in the English language.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Roister_Doister

LITERARY TERM - ACADEMIC DRAMA/SCHOOL DRAMA

Academic drama, also called school drama, is a dramatic tradition which arose from the Renaissance, in which the works of Plautus, Terence, and other ancient dramatists were performed in schools and colleges. At first, these dramas were performed in Latin, but later also in vernacular adaptations composed by schoolmasters under the influence of humanism. This tradition produced the earliest English comedies, notably Ralph Roister Doister (c. 1552) by the schoolmaster Nicholas Udall.

Contribute to the article on Wikipedia if you can. This article needs a lot to be added :) I am like Promoting wiki, which is good.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_drama

LEARN ROMAN NUMERALS. QUICK AND EASY.

I represents the number 1.
V represents the number 5.
X represents the number 10.
L represents the number 50.
C represents the number 100.
D represents the number 500.

Source:
http://www.wikihow.com/Learn-Roman-Numerals
M represents the number 1000.

ELEMENTS DEVELOPED BY GREEK DRAMA/DRAMATIC TRADITION

1. The tragic genre
2. Written scripts
3. Dialogue

QUIZ/GUESS: "His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plautus

STORY LINE OF AESCHYLUS' PLAYS

Agamemnon - Storyline

The play opens to a watchman on top of the house, reporting that he has been lying restless there "like a dog" (kunos diken) for a year, "for so rules the manly-willed heart of a woman" (that woman being Clytemnestra awaiting the return of her husband, who has arranged that mountaintop beacons give the signal when Troy has fallen). He laments the fortunes of the house, but promises to keep silent: "A huge ox has stepped onto my tongue." However, when Agamemnon returns, he brings with him Cassandra, the enslaved daughter of the Trojan king, Priam, and a priestess of Apollo, as his concubine, further angering Clytemnestra.

From the silence of the watchman the chorus begin with the great parados, which as Kitto expressed it ['It lays down the intellectual foundation of the whole trilogy'], bears the weight of the trilogy . . . Through descriptions of the past, hopes and fears for the future, and statements of the present (which together constitute the narrative) this song develops a series of tensions . . .[it] opens with the narrative of events leading towards the Trojan expedition[2]

The central action of the play is the agon between Clytemnestra and Agamemnon. She plays the loving, waiting wife and attempts to persuade Agamemnon to step on a purple (sometimes red) tapestry or carpet to walk into "his" palace as a true returning conqueror. The problem is that this would indicate hubris on Agamemnon's part, and he is reluctant. Eventually, for reasons that are still heavily debated, Clytemnestra does persuade Agamemnon to cross the purple tapestry to enter the oikos, the home.

While Clytemnestra and Agamemnon are offstage, Cassandra, who had heretofore been silent, is suddenly possessed by the god Apollo and enters a tumultuous trance. Gradually her incoherent delirium starts making some sense and she engages in anguished discussion with the chorus whether she should enter the palace, knowing that she too will be murdered. Cassandra has been cursed by Apollo for rejecting his advances. He has given her clairvoyance so that she can foresee future events, but he has cursed her so that no one who hears her prophesies will believe them until it's too late. In Cassandra's soliloquy, she runs through many gruesome images of the history of the House of Atreus as if she had been a witness of them, and she eventually enters the palace, knowing that her fate is preordained and unavoidable. The chorus, in this play a group of the elders of Argos, are left bewildered and fearful, until they hear the death screams of Agamemnon and frantically debate on a course of action.

A platform is then rolled out displaying the butchered corpses of Agamemnon and Cassandra, along with Clytemnestra brandishing the bloodied axe, and defiantly explaining her action. Agamemnon was murdered in much the same way an animal is killed for sacrifice: with three blows, the last strike accompanied by a prayer to a god. She is soon joined by Aegisthus, Agamemnon's dispossessed cousin and her lover, now the king, strutting out and delivering an arrogant speech to the chorus, who nearly enter into a brawl with him and his guard. However, Clytemnestra halts the dispute, saying that "There is pain enough already. Let us not be bloody now." The play closes with the chorus reminding the usurpers that Orestes, the son of Agamemnon, will surely return to exact vengeance.[3]

The Libation Bearers - The Storyline

Orestes arrives at the grave of his father, accompanied by his friend Pylades, the son of the king of Phocis, where he has grown up in exile; he places two locks of his hair on the tomb. Orestes and Pylades hide as Electra, Orestes' sister, arrives at the grave accompanied by a chorus of elderly slave women (the libation bearers of the title) to pour libations on Agamemnon's grave; they have been sent by Clytemnestra in an effort "to ward off harm" (l.42). Just as the ritual ends, Electra spots a lock of hair on the tomb which she recognizes as similar to her own; subsequently she sees two sets of footprints, one of which has proportions similar to hers. At this point Orestes and Pylades emerge from their hiding place and Orestes gradually convinces her of his identity.

Now, in the longest and most structurally complex lyric passage in extant Greek tragedy, the chorus, Orestes, and Electra, conjure the departed spirit of Agamemnon to aid them in revenging his murder. Orestes then asks "why she sent libations, what calculation led her to offer too late atonement for a hurt past cure"(l.515-516). The chorus responds that in the palace of Argos Clytemnestra was roused from slumber by a nightmare: she dreamt that she gave birth to a snake, and the snake now feeds from her breast and draws blood along with milk. Alarmed by this, a possible sign of the gods' wrath, she "sent these funeral libations"(l.538). Orestes believes that he is the snake in his mother's dream, so together with Electra they plan to avenge their father by killing their mother Clytemnestra and her new husband, Aegisthus.

Orestes and Pylades pretend to be ordinary travelers from Phocis, and ask for hospitality at the palace. They even tell the Queen that Orestes is dead. Delighted by the news, Clytemnestra sends a servant to summon Aegisthus. When Aegisthus arrives, Orestes reveals himself and kills the usurper. Clytemnestra hears the shouting of a servant and appears on the scene. She sees Orestes standing over the body of Aegisthus. Orestes is then presented with a difficult situation: in order to avenge his father, he must kill his mother. Clytemnestra bares her breast and pleads, "Hold, oh child, and have shame" to which he responds by saying to his close friend Pylades, the son of the king of Phocis: "Shall I be ashamed to kill [my] mother ?"(l.896-899). Some interpreters have suggested that Orestes' question may be connected to a greater theme in the Oresteia: that sometimes we are faced with impossible decisions; in this case, Orestes' familial [Of, relating to, or occurring in a family] duty to his father is fundamentally opposed to his familial duty to his mother. On the other hand, it appears straightforwardly as not much more than a pro forma rhetorical question because he readily accepts Pylades advice that it is the correct course of action. Pylades implores Orestes not to forget his duty to Apollo "and our sworn pact" (900). Orestes proceeds immediately with the murder and wraps the bodies of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus in the cloak that Agamemnon was wearing when he was slain.

As soon as he exits the palace, the Erinyes, or Furies as they are known in Roman mythology, begin to haunt and torture him in his flight. Orestes flees in agonized panic. The chorus complains that the cycle of violence did not stop with Clytemnestra's murder, but continues.

The Eumenides - Storyline

Orestes is tormented by the Erinyes, or Furies, chthonic deities that avenge patricide and matricide. He, at the instigation of his sister Electra and the god Apollo, has killed their mother Clytemnestra, who had killed their father, King Agamemnon, who had killed his daughter and Orestes's sister, Iphigenia. Orestes finds a refuge and a solace at the new temple of Apollo in Delphi, and the god, unable to deliver him from the Erinyes' unappeasable wrath, sends him along to Athens under the protection of Hermes, while he casts a drowsy spell upon the pursuing Erinyes in order to delay them.

Clytemnestra's ghost appears "exactly how or from where is uncertain . . . noteworthy is the poet's bold inventiveness in presenting her as a dream to a collection rather than to a single individual",[6] to the sleeping Erinyes, urging them to continue hunting Orestes. "As the first of them begins to awake the ghost departs".[7] The Erinyes' first appearance on stage is haunting: they hum in unison as they slowly wake up, and seek to find the scent of blood that will lead them to Orestes' tracks. Ancient tradition says that on the play's premiere this struck so much fear and anguish in the audience, that a pregnant woman named Neaira suffered a miscarriage and died on the spot.[citation needed]

The Erinyes' tracking down of Orestes in Athens is equally haunting: Orestes has clasped Athena's small statue in supplication, and the Erinyes close in on him by smelling the blood of his slain mother in the air. Once they do see him, they can also see rivulets of blood soaking the earth beneath his footsteps.

As they surround him, Athena intervenes and brings in eleven Athenians to join her in forming a jury to judge her supplicant.[8] Apollo acts as attorney for Orestes, while the Erinyes act as advocates for the dead Clytemnestra. During the trial, Apollo convinces Athena that, in a marriage, the man is more important than the woman, by pointing out that Athena was born only of Zeus and without a mother. Athena votes last and casts her vote for acquittal; after being counted, the votes on each side are equal, thus acquitting Orestes as Athena had earlier announced that this would be the result of a tie. She then persuades the Erinyes to accept the verdict, and they eventually submit. Athena then leads a procession accompanying them to their new abode and the escort now addresses them as "Semnai" (Venerable Ones), as they will now be honored by the citizens of Athens and ensure the city's prosperity. Athena also declares that henceforth tied juries will result in the defendant being acquitted, as mercy should always take precedence over harshness.

Important note:

That the play ends on a happy note may surprise modern readers, to whom the word tragedy denotes a drama ending in misfortune. The word did not carry this meaning in ancient Athens, and many of the extant Greek tragedies end happily.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oresteia

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/familial

THE TOPICS OF 20TH CENTURY LITERATURE

1. "Global war is one of the defining features of twentieth-century experience - How did recruiting posters, paintings, memoirs, and memorials represent the war?
2. Another of the twentieth century's defining features is radical artistic experiment. The boundary-breaking art, literature, and music of the first decades of the century are the subject of the topic "Modernist Experiment - Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, and Mina Loy, who also responded to the stimulus and challenge of the European avant-garde with manifestos, poems, plays, and other writings.
3. Another of the defining features of the twentieth century was the emergence of new nations out of European colonial rule -- 'Imagining Ireland'" -- Easter Rising of 1916 and the later outbreaks of sectarian violence from 1969 (known as the Troubles) in Northern Ireland.

Source:

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/20century/welcome.htm

Soupey! (my word for sorry) in the previous post, forgot to tell the source. Plus, I incorrectly wrote the word "Poetry". It was literature. The features of 20th Century English Literature.

DEFINING FEATURES OF 20TH CENTURY LITERATURE

1. "Global war is one of the defining features of twentieth-century experience - How did recruiting posters, paintings, memoirs, and memorials represent the war?
   
2. Another of the twentieth century's defining features is radical artistic experiment. The boundary-breaking art, literature, and music of the first decades of the century are the subject of the topic "Modernist Experiment - Ezra Pound, Wyndham Lewis, and Mina Loy, who also responded to the stimulus and challenge of the European avant-garde with manifestos, poems, plays, and other writings.
   
3. Another of the defining features of the twentieth century was the emergence of new nations out of European colonial rule -- 'Imagining Ireland'" -- Easter Rising of 1916 and the later outbreaks of sectarian violence from 1969 (known as the Troubles) in Northern Ireland.

Source:

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/20century/welcome.htm

Literature of 20th Century

Literature of the 20th century refers to world literature produced during the 20th century. The range of years is, for the purpose of this article, literature written from (roughly) 1900 through the 1990s.

1 1900-1918
2 Interwar period
3 World War II
4 Postwar period
5 Cold War period 1960-1989
6 1990s

This is what I've understood. Though, what wikipedia says is quite different from what I've heard. Let's see what I've heard, 20th Century poetry can range from "war-topics" to many other topics, like "creativity and art" - examples include Ted Huges and probably some of the poems of Heaney.

That's about it. Will read it and then let you know. For the moment, remember I type and my fingers hurt ;(

Analysis of the poem - "As I Walked Out One Evening" by W. H. Auden

Google the poem: As I Walked Out One Evening by Auden

In the first stanza, the mentioning of "Bristol Street" takes one by surprise. Bristol is England's sixth most populous city. And and Bristol being the largest centre of culture, employment and scholarship in the region, it is looked upon in a tragic manner. As a simple walk in 'Bristol Street' will contain images, and arouse thoughts that questions the morality of man. The morality of wars.


(Whirr: Sound of something in rapid motion)
In the second and third stanza, the verse "Love has no ending" seems like a universal statement. But as seen in the poem, the speaker extends his love and says, "I'll love you, dear, I'll love you/Till China and Africa meet" that is suggest that he wants to become or the speaker feels he is part of that "deep river" [last stanza] that will continue forever.

For me this You seems like  "fields of harvest wheat". And this "coughs when you would kiss." seems like a process, let's think - to be honest, I've to think more. If you know how can I relate to an imagery of "fields of harvest" let me know.


'In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

I can relate the above passage to war as well. Like burrow of the wheat fields once could possibly be field of wars. Burrows being he imagery of death burrows or graves dug up for the dead to be buried. 'Justice' being the death. 'Time watches from the shadow', for me this 'Time' becomes the shadow of the person watching the grave or the grave digger or the possibly the people who are just standing there in front of the dug out grave. 'Time' being on their side.


'In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

This situation can easily be related to time of worry. Like in your normal life or possibly in wars, the trouble in even thinking of those dramatic-times eats away your time. "Time will have his fancy" for me it can related in two ways, firstly Time is the force that would win out in the end, time being the energy that is in command of us all.

Continuing on the destruction and change time brings, this verse in the ninth stanza "Time breaks the threaded dances" is the continuation of this theme. 


For me in the tenth stanza mentioning of the 'plunge' and 'stare' is here in this poem to increase the intensity of what human generation has been upto. How it has been changing history destructively leaving behind countless tragedies along the way.

This eleventh stanza is a heavy one, if you are read it from the start. "And the crack in the tea-cup opens/A lane to the land of the dead." You can very well form the imagery. For example, if you were in a war field, maybe a wheat field and you have a container or something that could be cracked nearby that crack will open a lane to the land of the dead.


In the twelfth stanza, "beggars raffle the banknotes", "Giant is enchanting to Jack", "And the Lily-white Boy is a Roarer/And Jill goes down on her back". Now the situation is changed, people are now moving forward. As if, they have to - they have no choice - one  has to move forward. Stagnation cannot exist.


In the thirteenth stanza, "Mirror" still portrays that state of "distress" and  but life according to the speaker remains a "blessing" but you cannot it (a blessing) so.


In the fourteenth stanza, I must mention earlier that the repetition of the words, "look, look" (in the earlier stanza) and "stand, stand" in this stanza connects. And this standing and looking in the mirror is a sort of accepting what the "crooked" truth they've to face. As the usurper becomes their neighbour. 


In the last and fifteenth stanza, "The lovers they were gone;/The clocks had ceased their chiming,/And the deep river ran on."The whole stanza is showing that sleep overcame probably through death or probably through the fact that time never stops only for the one who are no more or who have crookedness in their heart, who wants to take revenge, right now.

Resources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._H._Auden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol
poemhunter.com

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Learn new words:
Dost : Friend (in Urdu)
Sa! : What (in Pashto)
Madre : Mother (in Italian)
Spiegel : Mirror (in German)
Chichi : Father (in Japanese)
Merci : Thank your (in French)

IRONY - Peer Gynt by Ibsen is Ibsen's most widely performed play according to Wikipedia.org and because of the critique Ibsen didn't write a play in verse. That's such a sad statement ;(

Despite this defense of his poetic achievement in Peer Gynt, the play was his last to employ verse; from The League of Youth (1869) onwards, Ibsen was to write drama only in prose.^[7]

It is the most widely performed Norwegian play.

"Chronology of Toni Morrison's Jazz" - vanderbilt.edu

Source: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/english/Clayton/234jazz.htm

Chronology of Toni Morrison's Jazz

1855  Vera Louise Gray, pregnant, moves to Baltimore; True Belle,
slave, goes with Vera Louise; leaves behind two children, May (age 10)
and Rose (age 8) (142)

1873  Aug.: Golden Gray meets Wild, pregnant w/ Joe (144); Joe Trace
born, Vesper Co., VA (123); raised by           Rhoda and Frank
Williams (123); taught to track by Henry Lestory (Hunters Hunter)

1870-90s  successive waves of northern migration (33)

1876  Violet Trace born (138)

1886  Vienna burned; Joe and Victory wander (174)

1888  Rose Dear loses her house, land, and goods (98, 138); Rocky
Mount hangings; Sept.: True Belle returns a           free woman to
Vesper (138)

1892  Rose Dear's suicide

1893  Joe hunts for his mother, Wild (175-78, cf. 36); marries Violet

1899  True Belle dies (138)

1901  Booker T. Washington eats at the White House; Joe and Violet
evicted from land Joe bought (126)

1906  Joe and Violet take the train to NYC (107)

1917  riots in East St. Louis; Dorcas's parents murdered (57); July:
march in NYC (54, 57, 128)

1919  Feb.: Armistice Day parade (129)

1925  Oct.: Joe meets Dorcas (68) 1926  Jan. 1: Joe shoots Dorcas
(180); Jan. 3: Dorcas's funeral (9); March: Violet visits Alice
Manfred.