Eliot and Auden Quiz Prep Flashcards
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”
T.S. Eliot
Fog
Women talking about Michaelangelo
Being a crab
Was going to tell someone something life altering, but decided against it.
Prufrock likes the ocean: once asleep on the ocean floor, but awakened by human voices. Drown
“The Wasteland”
T.S. Eliot
Believed to be intentionally confusing.
uncertainty, indecisiveness.
A game of chess: describes a girl taking fertility medication that makes her ugly. Shows how man participates in the wasteland.
“Tradition and the Individual Talent”
T.S. Eliot
Important to look at history to understand the past in order to write good poetry.
Depersonalization: anti-progressive
“As I walked out one evening”
W.H. Auden
The lover, the clock, and the narrator
Lover: time is conquerable and ignorable
Clock: ruling force of time
Narrator: love is outside both of these things
“time and death are irresistible forces and are always in control.
“Musee des Beaux Arts”
W.H. Auden
When bad things happen to people, others look the other way.
Icarus who fell out of the sky and is drowning
Beauty surrounds the drowning man, but no one helps him
Suffering surrounded by the hustle and bustle of everyday life
“In Memory of W.B. Yeats
W.H. Auden
First imagines what Yeats’ last day was like, then insults Yeats for all of his mistakes, while still admiring his poetry.
Focuses on how Europe is on the brink of war and poetry can’t bring happiness, but is still valuable at times.
September 1, 1939”
W.H. Auden
Refers to the beginning of WWII when Hitler invades Poland
Auden says farewell to the 1930’s and focuses on the causes of war.
Explains how the collective man cannot survive.
At the end: “we must love one another or die.”
“The Shield of Achilles”
W.H. Auden
Much like the Wasteland: a world devoid of principles and thics that in its march for success, the true mean of life has been lost.
The classical Achillean world is set against modernity.
