Cover
Click image to order
Never miss a post
Your email address:*
Name: 
Please enter all required fields
Correct invalid entries

Categories

« Creativity is Not a Microwave- by Alexandra Zelman-Doring | Main | From Adam and Eve to Scarlett and Rhett. . . »

November 03, 2013

Comments

Auden was not an American poet--and this version of "Autumn Song" is not the better one.

Autumn Song
Now the leaves are falling fast,
Nurse's flowers will not last;
Nurses to the graves are gone,
And the prams go rolling on.

Whispering neighbours, left and right,
Pluck us from the real delight;
And the active hands must freeze
Lonely on the separate knees.

Dead in hundreds at the back
Follow wooden in our track,
Arms raised stiffly to reprove
In false attitudes of love.

Starving through the leafless wood
Trolls run scolding for their food;
And the nightingale is dumb,
And the angel will not come.

Cold, impossible, ahead
Lifts the mountain's lovely head
Whose white waterfall could bless
Travellers in their last distress.

This is the better version.
-

I would contest the view that Auden was not an American poet. True, when he wrote this poem he had never been to America. But he came to America in 1939, settled in New York, and became a naturalized US citizen (in 1946, I believe). He is at least as American as St. Louis native T. S. Eliot is English.

I prefer “able hands”, and “lonely” to “derelict “.

Also, the “thes” in these two lines can be omitted.

I, too, vote for "able hands," and I guess "lonely," while not ideal, is superior to "derelict." -- DL

I would contest the view that Auden was not an American poet. True, when he wrote this poem he had never been to America. There were two main periods, and there are those who feel that the English Auden of the 1930s is the authentic voice. But he came to America in 1939, settled in New York, wrote a couple of his greatest and most ambitious poems in the US (the Freud elegy, "Sept 1, 1939," "Under Which Lyre). He became a naturalized US citizen (in 1946, I believe). He is nearly as American as St. Louis native T. S. Eliot is English.

I feel like the last two lines are much better in the first version. "From whose cold cascading streams None may drink except in dreams." conveys a sense of privation and bleakness that is in line with the rest of poem, and it's a much more powerful ending.

Overall, I feel like there are moments when the first version is better, and other moments in which the second version is better.

"Autumn Song" is a poem that shows Auden at his most British American or the other way around.

The second of these 2 versions is the one set to music by Benjamin Britten, in his songcyle, On the Island. Britten and Auden knew each other.

apologies for the typo in above comment- On This Island is the song cycle.

Like the first version best

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Your Information

(Name and email address are required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.)

Cover
click image to order your copy
That Ship Has Sailed
Click image to order
BAP ad
Cover
"Lively and affectionate" Publishers Weekly

Radio

I left it
on when I
left the house
for the pleasure
of coming back
ten hours later
to the greatness
of Teddy Wilson
"After You've Gone"
on the piano
in the corner
of the bedroom
as I enter
in the dark


from New and Selected Poems by David Lehman

StatCounter

  • StatCounter