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
highly ____ syntax, requires you to fill in the gaps of words that have been occluded, Auden’s veiled speech
compressed
In what ways is it veiled?
a letter comes speaking of much but ‘not to come’ and yet we’re given no content to it, so its content and promises are withheld
How is intimacy established?
his use of ‘you’ which suggests an implied, shared knowledge that the poem does not openly declare and doesn’t specify but rather remains reticent about
what does the intimacy do?
invite us into the reticence.
What could you compare it to?
Marianne Moore’s investment in “Restraint”, very closely related in its moral valences
what are Auden’s intentions in this poem?
to master his intentions as a speaker, to say what he means and he wants us to be able to grasp that
honesty
poetry as asphere of moral action in which truth is always at stake, where the poet’s specific office is to control and use language in a kind of responsible and honest way, He wants to be honest.
who is the poem dedicated to?
a man called William McElwee who was heterosexual and wasn’t interested in Auden
