![]() ![]() Like a mouth, poetry is an open potential from which words can issue. Since the ‘mouth’ is also the organ of speech, the word is used as a form of metonymy to refer to the poet himself. Poetry is a ‘mouth’ in that it metaphorically speaks to the reader. One example is his use of ‘mouth’ at the end of part 2 to talk about poetry and the poet simultaneously. These linked geographical comparisons metaphorically make Yeats a whole country into himself, which magnifies the gravity of the loss.Īuden also uses individual metaphors with great cleverness. The ‘invasion’ is preceded by ‘rumors then ‘revolt’ in the provinces of his body then the ‘squares of his mind’ are emptied, silence pervades the ‘suburbs’ of his existence, and the lights go out when the ‘current of his feeling failed.’ Auden uses a cluster of geographic terms (provinces, squares and suburbs) to illustrate the personal world of Yeats being shut down. He compares death to an invading army that takes over Yeats’ whole being in stanza 4. In addition, Auden makes good use of other extended metaphors by establishing a different central metaphor for almost each stanza in part 1. In an extended form of personification, the wintering earth itself seems to mourn the loss of the poet. This repetition creates a powerful scene of desolation in which the world’s deadliest time seems to mirror the poet Yeats’ death. ![]() Alliterating negative words and phrase include: ‘disappeared’ and ‘dad’ (line1), ‘deserted’ (line 2), ‘disfigured’ (line3), ‘dying day’ (line 4), and ‘day’, ‘death’ (line 6). The setting is desolate and filled with winter, death and negative words, which often are linked by alliteration of d sounds. So the death of Yeats remains at the focus of the poem only to support the peripheral reflections in the poem.Īuden begins this ode with an archetypal image cluster that links winter and death. He proceeds to embody certain general reflections on the art of a poet and the place of poetry in the flux of events, which constitute human history. He does not idealize Yeats as a poet or sentimentalize his fate. Although, apparently the poem is an elegy, Auden reverses and departs from the known traditions of elegy. "Ireland has her madness and her weather still." Thus, Auden reverses the traditional elegiac values and treats them ironically. He goes to the extent of calling him 'silly' and further that his poetry could make nothing happen. Secondly, in the traditional elegy the dead is glorified and his death is said to be a great loss for mankind at large. The great poet's death goes unnoticed both by man and nature: human life goes on as usual, and so does nature. ![]()
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