Posted on 01/30/2021 9:43:42 AM PST by ConservativeDude
The Shield of Achilles
She looked over his shoulder For vines and olive trees, Marble well-governed cities And ships upon untamed seas, But there on the shining metal His hands had put instead An artificial wilderness And a sky like lead....
(Excerpt) Read more at poets.org ...
A brilliant poem and one of my favorites. Auden was a pacifist and then increasingly became a Christian. What he saw was the ability of the state, any state and its ideology (think CCP— or Democratic Party) to insert itself between the individual and his conscience, deprive him of his moral authority, and destroy all of his personal connection with anything outside of the state. Then we become killing machines...or the killed.
We’re seeing this happening right now before our very eyes.,
A ragged urchin, aimless and alone,
Loitered about that vacancy; a bird
Flew up to safety from his well-aimed stone:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who'd never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.
One of my favorites too...
Wow. I had not read that before. Thank you.
You’re so welcome. I’m sorry that the poem rings so true and familiar today. But there is some comfort I suppose in that by engaging with poetry, we sort of begin to break out of what the poet describes.....
Our whole world now is one where we are told to mask up, get in line, say only what we are told to say in the way we are allowed to say it. They blare at us with statistics and a bullhorn, and we get in line and walk in step.
And truly all that has mass and majesty is in the hands of others, for now.
But like the Hobbits, though we are small....we will crawl back. It may take a while. But we will get our life and dignity, mass and majesty back, though it will be very costly.
Thanks for posting.
In my youth I looked down upon formal poetry, considering it the wussie’s means of striking back against the established “norm” while lacking actual testicles. Now I see the subtle build of linguistic architecture and how time builds upon and backs up the message of those talented. I’m starting to appreciate opera too. May have to turn in my Man Card soon. Kill me before I host a Drag Queen library hour (LOL).
Excellent.
Powerful imagery
Thanks for posting.
“Reason will be replaced by Revelation. Instead of Rational Law, objective truths perceptible to any who will undergo the necessary intellectual discipline, Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions... Whole cosmogonies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of schoolchildren ranked above the greatest masterpieces. Idealism will be replaced by Materialism. Life after death will be an eternal dinner party where all the guests are 20 years old... Justice will be replaced by Pity as the cardinal human virtue, and all fear of retribution will vanish... The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums and permanent invalids. The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Age, when the general, the statesman, and the philosopher have become the butt of every farce and satire.”
W. H. Auden 1942 “
“What he (Auden) saw was the ability of the state, any state and its ideology (think CCP— or Democratic Party) to insert itself between the individual and his conscience, deprive him of his moral authority, and destroy all of his personal connection with anything outside of the state. Then we become killing machines...or the killed.”
The three brief chapters making up The Abolition of Man — “Men without Chests,” “The Way,” and “The Abolition of Man” — were originally presented as the Riddell Memorial Lectures at the University of Newcastle in February of 1943. In the most discussed lecture and the one from which the book takes its title, Lewis warns that “if any one age really attains, by eugenics and scientific education, the power to make its descendants what it pleases, all men who live after it are the patients of that power.” Far from being freer and better humans, these new creatures will be “weaker, not stronger: for though we may have put wonderful machines in their hands we have preordained how they are to use them.”1 As a result of sophisticated biotechnology, “Man’s conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men.” Lewis concludes: “The final stage is come when Man by eugenics, by pre-natal conditioning, and by education and propaganda based on a perfect applied psychology, has obtained full control over himself. Human nature will be the last part of Nature to surrender to Man. The battle will have been won.”
A few hundred men over millions...
Some people have foreseen this....but I never, ever in my wildest nightmares, thought it would happen in the US. But in the space of a year, it has happened and this is a different country now.
Yes, I like those last two lines particularly because Auden shows how the state has alienated people from each other and from their moral responsibility and even their emotional connections. Happening before our very eyes.
It’s going to be costly indeed. But good always wins in the end.
LOL - You’ll be fine. Poetry’s wonderful and Auden’s one of the best.
LOL! The sad thing was that this stuff started getting known as “gay”or effeminate, and it really wasn’t. It was just the usual that happens with leftist academics taking over a field,...in this case, all of literature and all of music...and interrpreting and controlling it according to their ideological guidelines.
That drove a lot of people away from poetry, which actually had been a popular art form. When I was growing up in NYC, there were a lot of bookstores and whenever a new volume of poetry was published by some well-known poet, such as Robert Lowell or Elizabeth Bishop, the window would be filled with the display of the poet’s books. The shops actually had to limit how many people could come into the store on the first day (bookshops were generally small then).
When I went to PS 165 on the Upper West Side, they taught us poetry. All of us, English speakers, non-English speakers, black, white or whatever. We also had to write poetry, even modestly, and then in what was called Junior High School (grades 7-9) they introduced us to formal rhyme scheme.
Most poets had been essentially song-writes of their time, and were popular with everybody. It was the leftist academy after WWII that destroyed this.
awesome post, and rest assured, no loss of manliness is seen here! There are lots of us here at FR who love it all: opera house, ballet, poetry; as well as gun range, barbecue pit and MMA ring.
Keep pressing forward in ALL areas of culture!
holy moly
that’s just devastating
wow, thanks for posting
-----------------------------------------------------------
"My momma talkin' to me, tryna to tell me how to live
But I don't listen to her 'cause my head is like a sieve
My daddy, he disowned me 'cause I wear my sisters clothes
He caught me in the bathroom with a pair of pantyhose
My basketball coach, he done kicked me off the team
For wearing high heel-sneakers and actin' like a queen (Hahaha)
The world's comin' to an end—I don't even care
As long as can I have a Limo and my orange hair
Hahahahahaha!"
-----------------------------------------------------------
Loved rock and metal all those years - poetry (good and bad) set to music. What a hypocrite. Chin up, good citizens, as evil usually finds a way to defeat itself before we get a plan moving fast enough to do it. Hitler going after Russia, Russia pushing too hard for expansion, etc.
I suspect God prefers a balance in order to keep us on our toes and non-complacent. It seems to be a good overall plan and I'm not telling Him otherwise. I'm not Shaq, so bloody rich who owns apartment buildings and shopping centers. Hahahahahaha!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.