The Letter Flashcards
When was The Letter written?
1928
How many syllables does Auden strictly use in the second stanza?
8
how many syllables does Auden strictly use in the first stanza of The Letter?
9
“I, decent with the ___, move//Different or with a different love”
season
“If love not seldom has received//An unjust answer, was ___”
deceived
“Your ___ comes, speaking as you,//Speaking of much , but not to come”
letter
“Thought warmed to ___ through and through”
evening
“Shall see, shall pass, as we have ____”
seen
“Love’s worn ___ re-begun”
circuit
“Cry out against the storm, and found//The year’s ___ a completed round’
arc
summarise it
Auden takes you through the life of a love affair, using seasonal references in order to do that, collapsing the beginning middle and end fo the relationship into one moment as though it’s a time lapse
what do stanza divisions show
his acceptance of the devastating past that forces him to move on
what form ?
gnomic, riddle
‘new valley’
new relationship; valleys associated with fertility
‘frown’
initially because of the sun however later it is overpowering
‘you certainly remain’
three emphatics; the lover is a thing that seems to be definitively constant
‘sudden bird’
he projects himself onto it, exposure, isolation and loneliness; he wants to cry out against the ‘storm’ of his relationship
‘electric circuit’
no longer firing up as it used to
‘preliminary shiver’
excitement, sexual trepidation
‘solitary truck’
n longer has an engine or any momentum, like the old love. sexual innuendo of shunted? worn out of love
‘Speaking of much but not to come
//
Nor speech is close nor fingers dumb’
couplet is broken in the middle to further stress relationship is done
‘country god’
Pan - idea of chasing love, stone statue however with its ‘stone smile’ and ‘reticence’ is chilling? priapic?
tone
heartbreak, depressing
diction centred around connotations of ______ coping with emotion|L ‘shunting’ ‘decent’
progression
