"Musee des Beaux Arts," by W.H. Auden 1/17/12

“Musee des Beaux Arts”, by W. H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

REACTION

            When first reading this poem, I find it that it does not read well. I cannot connect ideas within this because it has no meter or rhyme scheme. It also only has two complete sentences with period at the end of each stanza. The imagery leads me to believe that the author is reflecting on something he may be looking at and the disconnection implies a train of thought.

PARAPHRASE

            The old Masters were never wrong about suffering. They understood its human position and how it took place when no one is paying attention. While adults wait for new life, there is always a child that doesn’t want the life because they will be ignored. They always remember that even martyrdom will happen with no attention until death. Everyone will go on with life as normal.

            In Pieter Breugel’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarusm” everything ignores the disaster with leisure. The farmer may have noticed but it wasn’t important. The sun shone on the farmer and the sea in the painting. The ship had to see something, but it just sails away.

SWIFTT:

Syntax/Word Choice-The author uses many adverbs and adjectives to describe different aspects. The purposes of these are mostly to develop each item that he mentions. The author also only has two sentences within the poem. This meant that many of his lines are dependent clauses or clauses after colons with he uses frequently.

Imagery- This poem is full of imagery. The author is in fact looking at a painting that he begins describing in the second stanza. In the first stanza, most of the imagery is added for the benefit of the reader like the child skating on the lake and the martyr suffering in a corner like a dog.

Figurative Language- There are no similes or metaphors in this work. There may be alliteration and assonance within some of the lines, but I do not think that it is intentional. I do not see any onomatopoeia or hyperboles within this poem either. 

Tone-This poem has a very peaceful, disconnect tone. The author writes it as an outsider looking in which is why there is a detachment of who is talk and way is happening. I feel that this may also contribute to the peaceful aspect of the tone. 

Theme-This poem shows the author looking at the world in a state of misery. He does not think that it is his problem because it is not happening to him. The first and second stanzas relate his life to a painting that ignores a person falling out of the sky, something so obvious but completely ignored. This poem ultimately shows the decrease in sympathy the world has formed.

CONCLUSION

I think that was correct in my original reaction to the text. The analysis has allowed me to understand what the poem actually says. The author is looking outside to the world. He sees the disconnect that the world feels toward misery that does not affect them personally.