Intro to Literature Week 8 Tutorial Task Analysis of Muse des Beaux Arts

by W.H Auden
By G1.8 WAN MUHAMAD FAHMI BIN WAN MARZUKI OOI WEI ZHUANG NUR ATHIRAH BINTI ZULKIFLEE NUR AMIRAH BINTI MOHD YAZID NUR FARHANA AKMAL BINTI MOHAMED KHAIRUDDIN

W.H. Audens Bio

Wystan Hugh Auden (W. H. Auden) was born in York, England, in 1907 Moved to Birmingham during childhood and was educated at Christ Church, Oxford He visited Germany, Iceland, and China, served in the Spanish Civil war, and in 1939 moved to the United States, where he met his lover, Chester Kallman, and became an American citizen His own beliefs changed radically between his youthful career in England, when he was an ardent advocate of socialism and Freudian psychoanalysis, and his later phase in America, when his central preoccupation became Christianity A noted playwright, librettist, editor, and essayist He died in Vienna in 1973

Muse des Beaux Arts

Composed by W.H. Auden 1938 after he visited the museum in Paris A French words for Museum of Fine Arts The poem is about a painting (Landscape with the fall of Icarus) painted by Pieter Brueghel the Elder

Summary of Muse des Beaux Arts

Disasters, tragedies and sufferings are a part of life; they happen any time. But life has to go on. The poem also indirectly shows human beings indifference towards their fellow beings. The poem begins and ends with meditation. The description in the middle is also in an ordinary language and rhythm.

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

by Pieter Bruegel

Features
Irregular poem because it does not rhythm and rhyme. (Free Verse)

Themes
Suffering
Pain and sufferings of human beings happen anywhere and anytime in the world Evidence: even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, (9-10) the white legs disappearing into the green Water; (17-18)

Ignorance/ Apathy
People sometimes are ignorant and blind to others pain We have lost sympathy and understanding due to habit Many people do not care about every event in their lives which is none of their business

 Evidence: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course (9-10) 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. (11-13) how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; (14-15) the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; (15-17) and the expensive delicate ship *+ had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on. (19-21)

Structure and form

Consists of 21 lines and two stanzas First stanza consists of 13 lines Second stanza consists of 8 lines Run-on-lines : Most of the punctuations occur in the middle of the lines Shows that the speaker is talking in a poem Eg: line 12 Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. Free verse Variable, usually unrhymed lines, having no fixed, consistent metrical pattern

Diction/ Language Use

The poet used simple and straightforward language but also builds up a fairly elaborate network of references and allusions.
Eg: Brueghels Icarus. (line 14)
Refering to The fall of Icarus story and Brueghels painting

This technique may arise confusion towards the readers but it could widen the readers knowledge and helps the readers to relate the poem with another situation.

Literary Devices (Allusions)

The Old Masters (line 2) The old masters are they who worked as a painter in Europe before about 1800. They are the artists in renaissance era who began with Leonardo da Vinci's era.

The miraculous birth (line 6) The dreadful martyrdom (line 10) The miraculous birth is the birth of Jesus the messiah. This called miraculous because the mother who bore Jesus is a virgin, Mary.

Literary Devices (Personification)

Personification consists of giving attributes of a human being to an animal, an object, or a concept. In this poem, the personifications are: the torturer's horse scratches its innocent behind on a tree (line 12) the horse acts as if it was a human by scratching its innocent the expensive delicate ship that must have seen something amazing (line 19) the ship has eyes to see an event of life as if it was a human

Literary Devices (Irony)

We must help another who is in a danger or in an unexpected situation, but in this poem, the painting shows the vice versa in which there's nobody helped the drowning Icarus, although they may have heard his cry. ( from stanza 2 onwards)

The END &