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October 30, 2001
Dear David
It was very nice indeed to meet you and hear your poems. I have a quick question. Do I remember correctly your saying that you had received via e-mail a number of copies of Auden's "September 1, 1939" after Sept. 11? I ask because I've agreed to give a lecture here in the spring on the subject of -- vaguely -- poetry in the world, or poetry/art's response to events like Sept. 11, or more precisely, the relation of poetry to consolation. I want to use Sept. 1, 1939, especially in light of Auden's fraught relationship with the poem and particularly with what seems like its key line--"We must love one another or die." Nobody sent me any poems after Sept. 11, but I'm interested that the Auden poem would be one that was going around electronically. Am I right in recalling that you mentioned this? Do you remember if that line was in the versions sent you? (Auden changed the line, as you probably know, and later cut the whole stanza, before disavowing the entire poem.) Thanks, Larry
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November 1, 2001
Hello, Larry, and thanks for your note. I undoubtedly did mention receiving "September 1, 1939" in the form of an e-mail. At least four or five persons sent it to me in the immediate aftermath of September 11. Many have commented on the electronic circulation of this poem in particular and of poems in general. Others making the rounds include Yeats's "Easter 1916," Larkin's "An Arundel Tomb," and Marianne Moore's "What Are Years?" but Auden's "September 1, 1939" had by far the greatest circulation. A column about it appeared on "Slate" toward the end of September and someone responded with a less enthusiastic view of the poem [going so far as to associate it with conservative Republicanism]. "Sept. 1, 1939" also turned out to be the subject of an "American Notes" column in the "TLS." There has been a recent spate of articles about poetry's "healing" properties, the appeal of verse in difficult times, including an otherwise unremarkable piece in today's "New York Times" (Nov. 1), which, of course, mentions Auden's "September 1, 1939" prominently. Part of the reason for the poem's sudden relevance is the general suspicion that September 11th may be our September 1st, the first day of a global war on a scale and against a foe that may make us nostalgic for the [ambiguities of the] Cold War. And then there are the blind skyscrapers and dense commuters, the odor of death in the September night, and the great flawed stanza, with that line Auden wound up hating. (But the more accurate "We must live one another and die" just doesn't work, does it?) The history of the poem, with Auden's hesitations, revisions and disavowals, would make fascinating reading right now. I've always been curious about just those poems of his that Auden ruthlessly disowned like "Spain 1938" and almost the whole of "The Orators." In any case the excised stanza was (to answer your question) included in the poem as it made the rounds last month. I hope very much you'll let me read what you write. Good luck on it. I'm so glad you were able to come to my reading. All the best, David
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November 2, 2001
Dear David,
Many thanks for the response, which is very useful. I'd be happy
to show you the lecture, if it turns out well, that is. And I agree that
"We must love one another and die" doesn't do it, though I don't think
it's more accurate, since we must die, but loving each other is surely a
more optional matter, and no doubt impossible for some, who will die
anyway. The earlier "or" line seems to me truer if read as meaning that
we may die from the condition of not loving one another. The notion that
if we love one another we won't die is either true as an act of religious
faith, or so obviously untrue as to be merely silly. So I'm thinking at
the moment. But then there's another problem, which I'd be interested in
knowing if you feel is even in the poem. That stanza begins: "All I have
is a voice/To undo the folded lie,/The romantic lie in the brain/Of the
sensual man-in-the street/And the lie of Authority/Whose buildings grope
the sky:" Following that colon are three statements, the last of which is
"We must love one another or die." Syntactically, wouldn't these be
examples of romantic lies, rather than the truth, even though they sound
true? I wonder.
All best, Larry
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November 3 [?]
This is a brilliant reading. And it may be that "There is no such thing as the state / And no one exists alone" would exemplify the "folded lie", "Hunger allows no choice / To the citizen or the police" would be the law of authority speaking, and then "We must love one another or die" becomes very specifically "the romantic lie in the brain / Of the sensual man in the street." The much-discussed line is then, if a point of light, an ironic one.
The major problem with this interpretation as I see it is that Auden uses colons throughout the poem but not in a consistent way. Certainly in several places the colon is used to introduce or identify or indicate an equality of the propositions preceding and following it; but there are also instances -- in stanzas 1, 2, 4, 6 -- where the colon is used more ambiguously, as if to indicate a simple advance in the argument.
Please let me know if you have thought further about this.
On another note, kudos on "Saint Augustine's Day" in "The New Republic"of September 17. A wonderful poem. I am only now beginning to catch up on my reading.
David
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