Carolina QuotesAuden is able to set up a We (whom he identifies himself with — rejection loves company) in opposition to the enemy They...
Randall Jarrell Carolinian
Source
“Changes of Attitude and Rhetoric in Auden’s Poetry”, p. 116
- work
- The Third Book of Criticism (1969)
- year
- 1969
- locator
- p. 116
Cite this record
“Auden is able to set up a We (whom he identifies himself wit…” Randall Jarrell. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-AD90FF7656. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/ad90ff7656
More from Randall Jarrell
The new masters paint a subject as they please, And Veronese is prosecuted by the Inquisition For the dogs playing at the feet of Christ, The earth is a planet among galaxies. Later Christ disappears, the dogs disappear: in abstract Understanding, without adoration, the last master puts Colors on canvas, a picture of the universe In which a bright spot somewhere in the corner Is the small radioactive planet men called Earth.
If my tone is mocking, the tone of someone accustomed to helplessness, this is natural: the poet is a condemned man for whom the State will not even buy breakfast — and as someone said, “If you’re going to hang me, you mustn’t expect to be able to intimidate me into sparing your feelings during the execution.”
One of the most puzzling things about a novel is that “the way it really was” half the time is, and half the time isn’t, the way it ought to be in the novel.