In the spirit of actually following up on things...

Hey guys. I figured I'd actually get you that poem analysis for my oral commentary that I promised. I pulled it together the night before it was due, and it could do with some tweaking, but the main points are all here, that's what matters. (Also... I'm much too lazy at the moment to bother fixing it up now...) Hope you enjoy!

In the poem, “Musee des Beaux Artes,” by W.H. Auden, the speaker explains that the Old Masters, 16^th and 17^th century artists, understood the truth of human suffering. Auden gives a biblical allusion to the birth of Christ, and then ends the poem with a direct artistic and classical allusion describing Bruegel’s painting depicting the fall of Icarus.   

Through visual imagery depicting quotidian life and the juxtaposition of biblical, classical, and artistic allusions, Auden depicts human selfishness and indifference to others’ plights to illustrate that suffering is neither epic nor heroic.

As I read the poem, be sure to look out for the aforementioned biblical and classical allusions, as well as visual imagery depicting daily human life.

“Musee des Beaux Artes”        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 specifically 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.

Key:

Normal, quotidian descriptions/connotations

Negative, unsightly connotations

Biblical allusion

Artistic/classical allusion

The poem was named “Musee des Beaux Artes,” after the museum that Breugel’s, “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus,” was housed in. I will discuss Breugel’s painting in a moment.

This poem is 21 lines of free verse. Free verse is poetry that is free of structured verse but not free of other poetic elements.

There is a fair amount of inverted syntax throughout the poem – for example, in lines 1-2 – to draw attention to the more important words and phrases such as “suffering,” “Old Masters,” and “how well.”

The speaker describes suffering as “human” in line 2 of the poem. The word “human” connotes a certain degree of averageness and normality, conveying that suffering is not a dramatic or heroic event. Rather, suffering is portrayed as quotidian, as demonstrated by the mundane, daily activities listed in line 4. By describing people doing uninteresting, ordinary things while supposedly heroic events are occurring, Auden reveals that the world doesn’t stop when bad things happen. Suffering occurs at a human scale. Life goes on, and people continue to go about their daily lives.

Auden proceeds to make a biblical allusion to the “miraculous birth” of Christ. Auden juxtaposes the rapt interest of “the aged” who are “reverently […] waiting” with the self-absorbed indifference of the “children […] skating on a pond.”

In line 9, “they” refers back to the “Old Masters.” This biblical allusion serves as Auden’s first example of the Old Masters’ understanding of suffering. The Old Masters “never forgot” that Christ’s martyrdom inevitably happened unseen and unlamented by a majority of people.

The words “corner” and “untidy” bear a slightly negative, unsightly connotation. Christ died a martyr out of the sight of others, explaining the lack of grandeur of the description of the setting in which his martyrdom occurred.

The repetition of the word “dog” in the phrase “the dogs go on with their doggy life” illustrates that nothing about the dogs’ behavior has changed at all. The martyrdom has little to no effect on them.   

Similarly, the juxtaposition of the mention of the “dreadful martyrdom” of Christ with the mundane, commonplace thing that the horse doing – that is, “scratch[ing] its […] behind on a tree.”

The depiction of the children, the dogs, and the horse’s indifferent responses is an example of irony since the biblical allusion to the martyrdom of Christ is otherwise presented as being quite dramatic and heroic.

Auden proceeds to give a similar second example of the Old Masters’ understanding of suffering. Auden makes an artistic allusion to a Breugel painting that depicts a direct classical allusion to the fall of Icarus. In Greek mythology, Icarus’ and his father, Daedalus, attempt to escape from Crete using wings that Daedalus constructed out of feathers secured with wax. Daedalus warned Icarus not fly too close to the sun, but Icarus ignored his fathers’ warnings and flew too close, the wax melted, and he fell into the sea and drowned.

Though the full title of Breugel’s painting is not including in the poem, I think it’s important to explain its significance, which furthers Auden’s explanation of human suffering. The painting is not titled “The Fall of Icarus,” rather, it is titled, “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus.” The use of the word “with” implies that Icarus is not the focus of the painting. The fall occurs but does not take all the attention.   

Indeed, Icarus is definitely not the focus of the painting. As you can see, Icarus is drowning in the lower right-hand corner of the painting. The focus is on the “ploughman” mentioned in line 15 of the poem, revealing once again that human suffering is quotidian.

The juxtaposition of “quite leisurely” with “disaster” illustrates that the fall would not be as disastrous or important for humans in real life as it was when it was described in the classical story.

The fact that the ploughman carries on with his work after possibly hearing Icarus’ “forsaken cry” reveals that suffering only really affects people on a more serious scale when it affects them personally and upsets their own daily lives. Others’ suffering is “not an important failure.”

The sun is described as shining as it “had to.” The use of the words “had to” implies that the sun was only shining on the drowning Icarus because it was in the sky at the time, not to aggrandize or put a spotlight on Icarus’ plight.

Auden references the “expensive delicate ship” shown here, which, as you can see, also draws more focus than the drowning Icarus. Despite having seen the fall, which is described by Auden – perhaps sarcastically – as “something amazing,” the ship “had somewhere to get to and sailed […] on,” not pausing and stopping to focus on the supposedly heroic suffering of Icarus. The people on the ship continue with their daily lives and their own personal plans, demonstrating that it is human nature to only care about suffering or worries that are ones’ own. Even then, suffering is rarely overtly dramatized, since it is generally accepted that suffering is a natural, inevitable part of human existence.

Icarus’ fall was dramatized by the Greek story, but downplayed by both the Old Masters’ paintings and Auden’s descriptions of people, creating the same irony present in the earlier biblical allusion.

Again, Auden reveals that the world doesn’t stop when bad things happen. The classical belief that everyone must aggrandize the sorrow of one person’s success or one person’s suffering was challenged by the beliefs of the Old Masters and by Auden. Life doesn’t stop when Christ is martyred; and life doesn’t stop when Icarus falls. Suffering only affects individuals on a heroic or dramatic scale when they are the ones experiencing the suffering. People are rarely deeply affected by others’ suffering, and when they are, it is often still for strong personal reasons. In conclusion, Auden alludes to the fact that the Old Masters’ disagreed with the Greek notion of suffering being heroic. Through the overwhelmingly indifferent human responses to suffering present in well known biblical and classical allusions, Auden illustrates that suffering is human and quotidian and is not to be dramatized or aggrandized.