DOCSLIB.ORG

The Poetics of Human Rights: Auden and Al-Jawahiri in the 1930S

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
The Poetics of Human Rights: Auden and Al-Jawahiri in the 1930S THE POETICS OF HUMAN RIGHTS: AUDEN AND AL-JAWAHIRI IN THE 1930S AHMED FAISAL KHALEEL PhD UNIVERSITY OF YORK ENGLISH AND RELATED LITERATURE FEBRUARY 2015 Dedication To My Father, whose funeral I couldn’t witness Or be with him in that hour of need This, Ḥāj Faisal, is a day of happiness For you and all my friends whom Death ceased Let your blessed souls have fun today I will join you later, as a Dr., I pray. ii Abstract This is a comparative study of human rights in modern English and Arabic poetry. It is an attempt to find out answers for the ongoing controversies on human rights across cultures, as well as between the humanitarian and the legal perspectives of human rights. It is also a step towards inspecting further dimensions in the relationship between human rights and literature, considering poetry as a main literary genre. Through narrative, argumentative and analytic methods this research project tackles a selection of the poetic careers of W. H. Auden and Mohammed Mahdi al-Jawahiri in the 1930s. Three poems are selected from each of the two poets, according to subject matter and its relation to human rights, chronological development, surrounding events and the poet’s character, his reactions and concerns. From Auden I have selected “Musée des Beaux Arts,” “Epitaph on a Tyrant” and “Refugee Blues;” while from al-Jawahiri, “Taḥarrak al-Laḥd” (The Coffin Moved), “Fī al-Sijn” (In Jail) and “al-Iqṭāʿ” (Land policy). Being divided into three pairs, the six poems (‘Musée des Beaux’ Arts with ‘Fī al-Sijn’, ‘Epitaph on a Tyrant’ with ‘Taḥarrak al-Laḥd’ and ‘Refugee Blues’ with ‘al- Iqṭāʿ’) will be identified and analysed in terms of human rights. The comparison targets similar human rights topics raised in each pair and highlights differences and similarities in understanding, approaching and defending them. The research focuses on the 1930s as a decade in which many significant events and issues are enfolded, especially in terms of human rights and the relationship between Britain and Iraq where the two poets come from. While the 1930s preceded the establishment of an international legal umbrella of rights, the decade’s events led to major violations of rights that occurred in World War II. As a transitional period for human rights, this research underlines the role of poetry as a means for defending rights in the lack of legal protection in the 1930s. Human rights in the poems of Auden and al-Jawahiri are approached from a number of respects: what are the topics of human rights raised in the poems, why are these topics prioritized, how did the poets react to violations and crimes and how are human rights seen by each poet and why. These questions and concerns are argued in the four chapters of this research project. iii List of Contents Abstract iii IJMES Transliteration Table vi Acknowledgments vii Declaration ix CHAPTER ONE 1. Introduction 1 CHAPTER TWO: W. H. Auden 13 2.1. Preliminary Steps 14 2.2. Section One: “Musée des Beaux Arts” 2.2.1. Introduction 22 2.2.2. The Poet as an Intellectual 27 2.2.3. Auden, Brueghel and the Anatomy of Suffering 30 2.2.4. “Musée des Beaux Arts” as a Human Rights Report 37 2.2.5. Icarus between Auden and Williams 40 2.2.6. Jarrell’s Musée 43 2.3. Section Two: “Epitaph on a Tyrant” 2.3.1. Introduction 46 2.3.2. The Freudian Marxist Alloy 48 2.3.3. The Poet vs the Tyrant 50 2.3.4. The Two Sides of Coin 57 2.3.5. Brodsky’s Tyrant 59 2.4. Section Three: “Refugee Blues” 2.4.1. Introduction 64 2.4.2. Auden’s Cinematic Technique 65 2.4.3. Auden, ‘Blues’ and Human Rights 69 2.4.4. Auden and Arendt 78 2.5. Consequences 80 CHAPTER THREE: Al-Jawahiri 84 3.1. Preliminary Steps 85 3.2. Section One: “Taḥarrak al-Laḥd” 3.2.1. Introduction 108 3.2.2. The Search for the Hero 109 iv 3.2.3. Stooping to Conquer 115 3.2.4. “Taḥarrak al-Laḥd” & “Spain” 122 3.2.5. Al-Jawahiri’s Dualism 123 3.3. Section Two: “Fī Al-Sijn” 3.3.1. Introduction 130 3.3.2. Prison Writing & Human Rights 133 3.3.3. The Poet as Icarus 137 3.3.4. Resistance within Resistance 145 3.3.5. Visual / Audio Suffering 149 3.4. Section Three: “al-Iqṭāʿ” 3.4.1. Introduction 153 3.4.2. The Anatomy of Land Policy 156 3.4.3. The Pillars of Land Policy 161 3.4.4. The Question of Violent Justice 169 3.5. Consequences 175 CHAPTER FOUR 4. Conclusion 178 Appendix (a): Translation of the selected poems of Auden 187 Appendix (b): Translation of the selected poems of al-Jawahiri 190 Bibliography 201 v IJMES Transliteration System for Arabic: A: Consonants b ب a ا-ى ' ء j ج th ث t ت d د kh خ ḥ ح z ز r ر dh ذ ṣ ص sh ش s س ẓ ظ ṭ ط ḍ ض f ف gh غ ʿ ع l ل k ك q ق h ﮪ n ن m م a - ah- at ة y ي w و (-ȝ (al ال B: Vowels Long: Doubled: (iyy (final form ī يﱠ ā ى or ا ū و (uww (final form ū وﱠ ī ي Diphthongs: Short: a َ au or aw او u َ ai or ay اي i َ vi Acknowledgments First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Ziad el-Marsafy. It has been a great honour to be his student. He taught me many things in life besides his most valuable and illuminating guidance during the four years of my study. I am also very thankful to him for his patience with me and the books which I do not know when to read them and with which one I should start. I would also like to thank my advisor, Professor Hugh Haughton for his extraordinary contribution and his rich comments. I believe I was so lucky to have him as a TAP. Speaking of luck, my everlasting thanks go to the following members of staff in the department of English & Related Literature: Professor David Attwell to whom I am particularly indebted for his support to have me accepted as a postgraduate student in York, Professor Matthew Campbell, Wendy Williamson and everyone in the department who helped with a single piece of advice, a word or a smile. Many thanks are also due to Professor Adam Philips for his time to answer my questions that revolved around psycho-analytical issues in Auden and poetry, and to Paul Mills for his advice on academic writing. Many thanks go to the Centre of Applied Human Rights in the University of York and to its outstanding staff, especially the director of the CAHR, Professor Paul Gready whose support has led to the emergence of this work. Thanks are also due to Lars Waldorf, Martin Jones and the rest of the amazing staff of the Centre. I am honoured to be a member of its family of human rights defenders. Thanks to the University of York for giving me the chance to do this work and to be one of its students, and thanks to York for making these years so lovely and nice. I should, hereby, present my thanks to the Students Support Hub for the financial aid without which this work could not go on. Thanks are also due to Dr. Nasr Jasim from the department of Chemistry, my brothers in the Saudi Club in York, Halifax College and Languages for All Centre (Dr. Margaret Fergusson, Angela Storey, Michelle, Gem, Laura, Gill, Ulrike Wray) and all those from the Centre from whom I received help; with special regards to Dr. Lucia Aiello for her help whenever I knocked at the door of her office to ask a question. For those who saved my life and brought me from Iraq to the UK, I would like to thank my dear friend Dr. Jawad al-Hāshimī and Cara (Council for Assisting Refugee vii Academics) for their most appreciated help and support, and in particular to Professor John Akker and Kate Robertson. Special thanks go to Murray Edwards College (New Hall), University of Cambridge, for hosting us for 40 days when I arrived with my family to the UK. The idea of the translatability of human rights started to form in the gardens of the college and throughout my chats with Dr. Raphael Lyons on this issue and on the translation of poetry. My dear friends in the BSB (Sebastian, Rahul, Dima, Ruwaishid, Hakim, Nick and Daniel), and our dear friend Anna Cowell: many thanks. Last but not least, I would like to thank my family, starting from my mother for her duʿā, and my dear wife, Noor Q. Ismael, for her amazing patience and support. My thanks also go to her parents (and mine) for their lovely wishes. My dear children Faisal, Khadija and little Azuz, you are the candles of my life. My brothers and my sister Um Hussein: thanks for your help and encouragement. Thanks to everyone and please accept my apologies if I forget to mention you. Ahmed Faisal Khaleel December 10, 2014 University of York viii DECLARATION I declare that, except where explicit reference is made to the contribution of others, this thesis is the result of my own research and authorship and has not been submitted for any other degree at the University of York or any other institution.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Christopher Isherwood Papers
    http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8pk0gr7 No online items Christopher Isherwood Papers Finding aid prepared by Sara S. Hodson with April Cunningham, Alison Dinicola, Gayle M. Richardson, Natalie Russell, Rebecca Tuttle, and Diann Benti. The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens Manuscripts Department The Huntington Library 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2191 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org © October 2, 2000. Updated: January 12, 2007, April 14, 2010 and March 10, 2017 The Huntington Library. All rights reserved. Christopher Isherwood Papers CI 1-4758; FAC 1346-1397 1 Overview of the Collection Title: Christopher Isherwood Papers Dates (inclusive): 1864-2004 Bulk dates: 1925-1986 Collection Number: CI 1-4758; FAC 1346-1397 Creator: Isherwood, Christopher, 1904-1986. Extent: 6,261 pieces, plus ephemera. Repository: The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Manuscripts Department 1151 Oxford Road San Marino, California 91108 Phone: (626) 405-2191 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.huntington.org Abstract: This collection contains the papers of British-American writer Christopher Isherwood (1904-1986), chiefly dating from the 1920s to the 1980s. Consisting of scripts, literary manuscripts, correspondence, diaries, photographs, ephemera, audiovisual material, and Isherwood’s library, the archive is an exceptionally rich resource for research on Isherwood, as well as W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender and others. Subjects documented in the collection include homosexuality and gay rights, pacifism, and Vedanta. Language: English. Access The collection is open to qualified researchers by prior application through the Reader Services Department, with two exceptions: • The series of Isherwood’s daily diaries, which are closed until January 1, 2030.
    [Show full text]
  • An Index to Alan Ansen's the Table Talk of W. H. Auden Edited By
    An Index to Alan Ansen’s The Table Talk of W. H. Auden Edited by Nicholas Jenkins Index Compiled by Jacek Niecko A Supplement to The W. H. Auden Society Newsletter Number 20 • June 2000 Jacek Niecko is at work on a volume of conversations and interviews with W. H. Auden. Adams, Donald James 68, 115 Christmas Day 1941 letter to Aeschylus Chester Kallman 105 Oresteia 74 Collected Poems (1976) 103, 105, Akenside, Mark 53 106, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, Amiel, Henri-Frédéric 25 114, 116, 118 Andrewes, Lancelot 75 Collected Poetry 108 Meditations 75 Dark Valley, The 104 Sermons 75 Dog Beneath the Skin, The 51, 112 Aneirin Dyer’s Hand, The xiii, 100, 109, 111 Y Gododdin 108 “Easily, my dear, you move, easily Ann Arbor, Michigan 20, 107 your head” 106 Ansen, Alan ix-xiv, 103, 105, 112, 115, Enemies of a Bishop, The 22, 107 117 English Auden, The 103, 106, 108, Aquinas, Saint Thomas 33, 36 110, 112, 115, 118 Argo 54 Forewords and Afterwords 116 Aristophanes For the Time Being 3, 104 Birds, The 74 Fronny, The 51, 112 Clouds, The 74 “Greeks and Us, The” 116 Frogs, The 74 “Guilty Vicarage, The” 111 Aristotle 33, 75, 84 “Hammerfest” 106 Metaphysics 74 “Happy New Year, A” 118 Physics 74 “I Like It Cold” 115 Arnason Jon “In Memory of W.B. Yeats” xv, 70 Icelandic Legends 1 “In Search of Dracula” 106 Arnold, Matthew xv, 20, 107 “In Sickness and In Health” 106 Asquith, Herbert Henry 108 “In the Year of My Youth” 112 Athens, Greece 100 “Ironic Hero, The” 118 Atlantic 95 Journey to a War 105 Auden, Constance Rosalie Bicknell “Law Like Love” 70, 115 (Auden’s mother) 3, 104 Letter to Lord Byron 55, 103, 106, Auden, Wystan Hugh ix-xv, 19, 51, 99, 112 100, 103-119 “Malverns, The” 52, 112 “A.E.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cases of Venedikt Erofeev, Kurt Vonnegut, and Victor Pelevin
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Scholarship@Western Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 8-21-2012 12:00 AM Burying Dystopia: the Cases of Venedikt Erofeev, Kurt Vonnegut, and Victor Pelevin Natalya Domina The University of Western Ontario Supervisor Professor Calin-Andrei Mihailescu The University of Western Ontario Graduate Program in Comparative Literature A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree in Master of Arts © Natalya Domina 2012 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Comparative Literature Commons Recommended Citation Domina, Natalya, "Burying Dystopia: the Cases of Venedikt Erofeev, Kurt Vonnegut, and Victor Pelevin" (2012). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 834. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/834 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BURYING DYSTOPIA: THE CASES OF VENEDIKT EROFEEV, KURT VONNEGUT, AND VICTOR PELEVIN (Spine Title: BURYING DYSTOPIA) (Thesis Format: Monograph) by Natalya Domina Graduate Program in Comparative Literature A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts The School of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario, Canada Natalya Domina 2012 THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO THE UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN ONTARIO SCHOOL OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES CERTIFICATE OF EXAMINATION Supervisor Examiners ____________________________ ________________________________ Prof.
    [Show full text]
  • CONTENTS Xiii Xxxi Paid on Both Sides
    CONTENTS PREFACE ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xi INTRODUCTION xiii THE TEXT OF THIS EDITION xxxi PLAYS Paid on Both Sides [first version] (1928), by Auden 3 Paid on Both Sides [second version] (1928), by Auden 14 The Enemies of a Bishop (1929), by Auden and Isherwood 35 The Dance of Death (1933), by Auden 81 The Chase (1934), by Auden 109 The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935), by Auden and Isherwood 189 The Ascent of F 6 (1936), by Auden and Isherwood 293 On the Frontier (1937-38), by Auden and Isherwood 357 DOCUMENTARY FILMS Coal Face (1935) 421 Night Mail (1935) 422 Negroes (1935) 424 Beside the Seaside (1935) 429 The Way to the Sea (1936) 430 The Londoners (1938?) 433 CABARET AND WIRELESS Alfred (1936) 437 Hadrian's Wall (7937) 441 APPENDICES I Auden and Isherwood's "Preliminary Statement" (1929) 459 1. The "Preliminary Statement" 459 2. Auden's "Suggestions for the Play" 462 VI CONTENTS II The Fronny: Fragments of a Lost Play (1930) 464 III Auden and the Group Theatre, by M J Sldnell 490 IV Auden and Theatre at the Downs School 503 V Two Reported Lectures 510 Poetry and FIlm (1936) 511 The Future of Enghsh Poetic Drama (1938) 513 fEXTUAL NOTES PaId on Both SIdes 525 The EnemIes of a BIshop 530 The Dance of Death 534 1 History, Editions, and Text 534 2 Auden's SynopsIs 542 The Chase 543 The Dog Beneath the Skm 553 1 History, Authorship, Texts, and EditIOns 553 2 Isherwood's Scenano for a New Version of The Chase 557 3 The Pubhshed Text and the Text Prepared for Production 566 4 The First (Pubhshed) Version of the Concludmg Scene 572 5 Isherwood's
    [Show full text]
  • Sharpe, Tony, 1952– Editor of Compilation
    more information - www.cambridge.org/9780521196574 W. H. AUDen IN COnteXT W. H. Auden is a giant of twentieth-century English poetry whose writings demonstrate a sustained engagement with the times in which he lived. But how did the century’s shifting cultural terrain affect him and his work? Written by distinguished poets and schol- ars, these brief but authoritative essays offer a varied set of coor- dinates by which to chart Auden’s continuously evolving career, examining key aspects of his environmental, cultural, political, and creative contexts. Reaching beyond mere biography, these essays present Auden as the product of ongoing negotiations between him- self, his time, and posterity, exploring the enduring power of his poetry to unsettle and provoke. The collection will prove valuable for scholars, researchers, and students of English literature, cultural studies, and creative writing. Tony Sharpe is Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Lancaster University. He is the author of critically acclaimed books on W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Vladimir Nabokov, and Wallace Stevens. His essays on modernist writing and poetry have appeared in journals such as Critical Survey and Literature and Theology, as well as in various edited collections. W. H. AUDen IN COnteXT edited by TONY SharPE Lancaster University cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Mexico City Cambridge University Press 32 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10013-2473, USA www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521196574 © Cambridge University Press 2013 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.
    [Show full text]
  • Newsletter 32
    The W. H. Auden Society Newsletter Number 32 ● July 2009 Memberships and Subscriptions Annual memberships include a subscription to the Newsletter: Contents Individual members £9 $15 Katherine Bucknell: Edward Upward (1903-2009) 5 Students £5 $8 Nicholas Jenkins: Institutions and paper copies £18 $30 Lost and Found . and Offered for Sale 14 Hugh Wright: W. H. Auden and the Grasshopper of 1955 16 New members of the Society and members wishing to renew should David Collard: either ( a) pay online with any currency by following the link at A New DVD in the G.P.O. Film Collection 18 http://audensociety.org/membership.html Recent and Forthcoming Books and Events 24 or ( b) use postal mail to send sterling (not dollar!) cheques payable to “The W. H. Auden Society” to Katherine Bucknell, Memberships and Subscriptions 26 78 Clarendon Road, London W11 2HW, Receipts available on request. A Note to Members The W. H. Auden Society is registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales as Charity No. 1104496. The Society’s membership fees no longer cover the costs of printing and mailing the Newsletter . The Newsletter will continue to appear, but The Newsletter is edited by Farnoosh Fathi. Submissions this number will be the last to be distributed on paper to all members. may be made by post to: The W. H. Auden Society, Future issues of the Newsletter will be posted in electronic form on the 78 Clarendon Road, London W11 2HW; or by Society’s web site, and a password that gives access to the Newsletter e-mail to: [email protected] will be made available to members.
    [Show full text]
  • First Name Initial Last Name
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository Sarah E. Fass. An Analysis of the Holdings of W.H. Auden Monographs at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Rare Book Collection. A Master’s Paper for the M.S. in L.S. degree. April, 2006. 56 pages. Advisor: Charles B. McNamara This paper is an analysis of the monographic works by noted twentieth-century poet W.H. Auden held by the Rare Book Collection (RBC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It includes a biographical sketch as well as information about a substantial gift of Auden materials made to the RBC by Robert P. Rushmore in 1998. The bulk of the paper is a bibliographical list that has been annotated with in-depth condition reports for all Auden monographs held by the RBC. The paper concludes with a detailed desiderata list and recommendations for the future development of the RBC’s Auden collection. Headings: Auden, W. H. (Wystan Hugh), 1907-1973 – Bibliography Special collections – Collection development University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Rare Book Collection. AN ANALYSIS OF THE HOLDINGS OF W.H. AUDEN MONOGRAPHS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL’S RARE BOOK COLLECTION by Sarah E. Fass A Master’s paper submitted to the faculty of the School of Information and Library Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Library Science.
    [Show full text]
  • Download the Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Alan Myers, William
    The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Alan Myers, William Leatherbarrow, Oxford University Press, 2008, 0199536392, 9780199536399, 658 pages. The Idiot (1868), written under the appalling personal circumstances Dostoevsky endured while travelling in Europe, not only reveals the author's acute artistic sense and penetrating psychological insight, but also affords his most powerful indictment of a Russia struggling to emulate contemporary Europe while sinking under the weight of Western materialism. It is the portrait of nineteenth-century Russian society in which a "positively good man" clashes with the emptiness of a society that cannot accommodate his moral idealism. Meticulously faithful to the original, this new translation includes explanatory notes and a critical introduction by W.J. Leatherbarrow. About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.. DOWNLOAD HERE Dostoevsky's The Idiot A Critical Companion, Liza Knapp, 1998, Literary Criticism, 274 pages. This book is designed to guide readers through Dostoevsky's The Idiot, first published in 1869 and generally considered to be his most mysterious and confusing work. The volume .... Persuasion , Jane Austen, 1947, English fiction, 254 pages. The House of the Dead and Poor Folk , Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 2004, Fiction, 446 pages. In "The House of the Dead, Dostoevsky give vent to his perceptions of prison life, writing from his grueling experience in a Siberian camp, and introduces a gallery of boastful ...
    [Show full text]
  • Anti-Romantic Elements in the Biographical-Critical Poems of W. H. Auden's Another Time
    RICE UNIVERSITY ANTI-ROMANTIC ELBiENTS IN THE BIOGRAPHICAL-CRITICAL . POEMS OF W. H. AUDEN’S ANOTHER TIME by Sarah Lilly Terrell A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS Thesis Director’s signature* l/tyk&bjL /Al. — Houston, Texas June 1966 ABSTRACT ANTI-ROMANTIC ELEMENTS IN THE BIOGRAPHICAL-CRITICAL POEMS OF W. H. AUDEN’S ANOTHER TIME by Sarah Lilly Terrell W. H. Auden first published the volume of poems entitled Another Time on February 7, 1940. There has been no study of the volume as an artistic entity, and only a few of the poems have received detailed commentary. This thesis will consider a selected group of poems from Another Time, the biographical-critical poems, in some detail. They have been selected for major emphasis because they reflect the dominant concerns of the volume. Furthermore, because each biographical portrait is based on an informed knowledge of the life and work of the writer it depicts, the reader must be similarly informed before he can appreciate the richness of reference and astuteness of judgment which characterize those poems. The poems will be viewed from two perspectives: that sug¬ gested by Auden's prose writings on Romanticism and that provided by the context of the volume as a whole. The second chapter of this thesis surveys the wealth of primary sources in prose available to the critic interested in Auden's attitude towards Romanticism. The prose written from 1937-1941 is pervaded by Auden's concern with the implications of Romanticism. The address given at Smith College in 1940 contains Auden's most explicit statement of the ABSTRACT (Cont'd.) relationship of Romanticism to the then current political situation* The urgency of his preoccupation results from his conviction that the Romantics1 failure to grasp the proper relationship of freedom to nec¬ essity has an immediate and direct bearing on the rise of fascism* This preoccupation appears repeatedly in the many book reviews Auden wrote during this period.
    [Show full text]
  • Modern Poetry—Yeats, Eliot, Auden
    English W3220: Modern Poetry—Yeats, Eliot, Auden Edward Mendelson Office: Philosophy 614, Mon 4-6, Wed 11-12 Hamilton 603, MW 9:10-10:25 [email protected], x46417 Book list: W. B. Yeats, The Yeats Reader (Scribner) T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land and Other Poems (Penguin); Four Quartets (Harcourt); a PDF download from Courseworks W. H. Auden, Selected Poems (Vintage); a PDF download from Courseworks Jan 21 Introductory 26, 28 Yeats: The Stolen Child; Down by the Salley Gardens; To the Rose upon the Rood of Time; Fergus and the Druid; The Lake Isle of Innisfree; When You are Old; Who goes with Fergus?; The Man who dreamed of Faeryland; The Two Trees; To Ireland in the Coming Times; The Hosting of the Sidhe; The Song of Wandering Aengus; He remembers forgotten Beauty; The Cap and Bells; He wishes his Beloved were Dead; In the Seven Woods; The Folly of Being Comforted; Never give all the Heart; Adam’s Curse; A Woman Homer sung; Words; No Second Troy; Reconciliation; The Fascination of What’s Difficult; A Drinking Song; The Mask; Upon a House shaken by the Land Agitation; All Things can Tempt Me; also the prose essay The Symbolism of Poetry” (pp. 374-81) Feb 02, 4 Yeats: [Introductory rhymes:] Pardon, old fathers… ; September 1913; To a Friend whose Work has come to Nothing; Paudeen; The Three Beggars; Beggar to Beggar cried; A Memory of Youth; The Cold Heaven; The Magi; The Dolls; A Coat; The Wild Swans at Coole; In Memory of Major Robert Gregory; An Irish Airman foresees his Death; The Scholars; On Woman; The Fisherman; The People; On Being Asked for a War Poem; Ego Dominus Tuus; The Phases of the Moon (handout); Michael Robartes and the Dancer; Easter, 1916; Sixteen Dead Men; The Second Coming; A Prayer for my Daughter; also the prose essay Ireland and the Arts (pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Pascual Argente Clara Summer2010.Pdf (4.6MB)
    VISIONS OF ANTIQUITY REMEMBERING THE CLASSICAL PAST IN THE CASTILIAN ROMAN ANTIQUE A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Spanish Literature and Cultural Studies By Clara Pascual Argente, M.A. Washington, D.C. June 22, 2010 Copyright 2010 by Clara Pascual Argente All Rights Reserved ii VISIONS OF ANTIQUITY REMEMBERING THE CLASSICAL PAST IN THE CASTILIAN ROMAN ANTIQUE Clara Pascual Argente, M.A. Thesis Advisor: Emily C. Francomano, Ph.D. ABSTRACT The appearance of the Libro de Alexandre and the Libro de Apolonio in the thirteenth-century Castilian literary scene represents the first time in which the key classical narratives about Alexander the Great, the Trojan War, and Apollonius of Tyre are rendered in an Iberian vernacular language. Both works are traditionally studied against the background of the mester de clerecía, a body of Castilian clerical didactic poems often composed in the same metrical form as the Libros and encompassing different genres such as hagiography, epic, or romance. In this study, I read the Libros from a European rather than exclusively Castilian perspective as part of the generic tradition of the roman antique or roman d’antiquité, vernacular romances recounting some of the central narratives inherited from classical antiquity. The romances of antiquity initially took shape in twelfth-century francophone courts but were copied, read, and reworked in almost every Western European language throughout the Middle Ages. My reading stems from a reconceptualization of the roman antique as a genre primarily concerned with the construction of a collective memory of antiquity, a result of its investment in the larger process of cultural homogenization known as the Europeanization of Europe.
    [Show full text]
  • MA Thesis Eveline De Smalen
    “Dreaming of Elsewhere”: Landscape in W.H. Auden M.A. Thesis Comparative Literary Studies, Utrecht University Eveline de Smalen 3701638 Supervisor: Prof. Dr David Pascoe Second reader: Dr Kári Driscoll 21 August 2015 38,038 words 2 Table of Contents Introduction 3 “Truth Is Elsewhere”: Crossing Borders in England, Germany and the Nordic Countries 18 “Oh How I Wish That Situation Mine”: English Mining Landscapes 20 “Nicht Mehr in Berlin ”: Auden in Germany 31 “The Magical Light Beyond Hekla”: The Nordic Countries 47 “What Could Be More Like Mother”: Freudian Landscapes 59 “An Important Jew Who Died in Exile”: The Borders of Freud 61 “Never, Thank God, in Step”: The Necessity of Borders 70 “Dislodged from Elsewhere”: Auden in Exile 80 “My Cosmos is Contracted”: Landscapes of Religion 93 “Gone the Boundary Stone”: Auden and Co-Inherence 96 “You Have to Leap before You Look”: Borders and the Leap of Faith 107 “A Place I May Go Both in And out of”: Coming Home 121 Conclusion 131 Appendix: Landscape Photographs 135 Works Cited 143 3 Introduction In 1950, Wystan Hugh Auden wrote “In Transit,” on the occasion of his plane making a stopover at Shannon Airport in “Mad Ireland” (“W.B. Yeats” 34) on the way to continental Europe 1. This poem, in which words like “somewhere,” “elsewhere,” and “nowhere” abound, shows the airport as a non-place representative of modernity. Marc Augé has theorised the concept of the non-place, writing that If a place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity, then a place which cannot be defined as relational, or historical, or concerned with identity will be a non-place.
    [Show full text]