Section 2  Exercise 4 Breughel/WH Auden
The link below will lead you to one of WH Auden's
most famous poems. An accompanying link will allow you to hear an audio
snippet of the poem performed by the poet himself. After you have discussed
the poem and/or answered the discussion questions, your instructor may allow
you to review the Annotation. There are excellent analyses of this poem on
the internet.
The poem: http://poetrypages.lemon8.nl/life/musee/museebeauxarts.htm
An audio segment: http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org/trackdetail.aspx?itemid=31665
Discussion Questions
Notice how the discussion questions 2 and 3 teach you something about the interpretation of a poem. They show how even a phrase or a certain choice of images work to convey meaning. Think about how attention to such minute clues could be applied to interpreting a patient's remarks, facial expressions or even symptoms.
- When you examined the Breughel painting, did you see the same thing the poet Auden did?
- In the last stanza, Auden could just have written, "The sun shone/on the white legs." What does the phrase 'as it had to' add to the meaning of the poem?
- To whom does the poet ascribe indifference in this poem? He mentions at least 4 specific examples. What do they have in common? Do you detect a sort of elitism in the poet's view of who he considers most self-absorbed?
- Reflect on the healer as witness: what role does detachment play in his/her function as healer? How could a good healer counteract the indifference depicted in this poem?
- You, as reader, occupy a unique position: the poet has invited you to witness both the tragedy and to the world's indifference depicted in the poem. In 'real life,' if you were given the privilege--or curse--of this double vision, what would you do about it? How does a person deal with someone else's suffering? What are our obligations when we see that others don't notice or are indifferent to it?
|
