Politics

Question 1

Selden Rodman’s diary recording Auden

Answer 1

‘mine is not to fight… I think it is to see clearly, to warn of excesses and crimes against humanity whoever commits them’

Question 2

Auden in Unpublished Book 1939

Answer 2

‘The Enemy was and still is the Politican’

Question 3

Why are the couplets jumbled up in Epitaph of a Tyrant?

Answer 3

illustrates that sometimes people ‘s actions appear to be mysterious or more complicated than they actually are

Question 4

‘and when he cried, little children died in the streets’

Answer 4

expected to be written ‘and when he died, little children cried in the streets’, a quote form J.L Motley’s book. The hypallage is devastating.

Question 5

Mendelson

Answer 5

‘he was divided between the idea of a political revolution and the idea of change brought about through an inner psychological revolution, ‘a change of heart’.’

Question 6

MacNeice

Answer 6

commented that Auden is ‘always taking sides’ - yet in doing so, Aden’s work becomes polyperspective in that he presents several ‘sides’ of the turbulent political climate in Europe