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W H Auden On A Tyrant Essay

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The W.H. Auden of the 1930s is quite a different man compared to his to his 1940s counterpart. Not only did his personal viewpoints and opinions dramatically change, but his but the subjects of his poems also demonstrated a marked shift. Characterized by powerful political rhetoric, his earlier work may appear to have little in common with his later poems, which examined religious themes. However, while the subject matter of Auden’s work changes, his poems consistently forcing the audience to reexamine their own world views. The vast majority of Auden’s earlier work revolves around the political upheaval he witnessed as a young man. His travels took him from Spain to China to Germany as fascism threatened the stability of the entire world. …show more content…

The brief yet effective piece supports Auden’s argument that humans are not inherently bad. He paints an exceptionally forgiving portrait of the tyrant. The word itself has an extremely negative connotation; “tyrant” implies a villainous individual devoid of any sense of morality. Yet until the poem’s absolute conclusion, Auden portrays the tyrant as an average man indistinguishable from the masses. Auden succeeds in humanizing the tyrant by demonstrating the universal goals he has in common with so many others. The tyrant is not driven by deep evil; rather, he is motivated by a pure goal: he wants to achieve perfection, like so many other aims to do. Furthermore, the tyrant creates poetry in order to express his own opinions to the world at large. This, too, is not an uncommon pastime. There is perhaps no more innate human desire than the desire to express oneself. Indeed, Auden even notes that the tyrant’s poems are “easy to understand”, implying that those around him can empathize with the ideas he puts forth in his poems, indicating that reflect the opinions of the general populous (Auden). Furthermore, the tyrant engages in scholarly hobbies: he spends his days studying humanity and military …show more content…

As time went on, Auden gradually distanced himself from his political poems. He felt that they were inherently dishonest, and comprised the integrity of the relationship between reader and poet by forcing the reader to accept only one interpretation of a political event: the poet’s own personal opinion. Coupled with Auden’s increasing personal spirituality, this caused the focus of his poems to shift from politics to religion and morality. He was an observant Christian, though he only practices the aspects of the faith that focused on betterment of mankind. He felt that like “church doctrines, like all human creations, were subject to judgment” (Mendelson). This opinion is especially prominent in his poem “Victor”. His protagonist had been raised in a devoutly religious environment. Throughout his life, Victor continues to live according to the rules and regulation laid forth in the Bible. Auden uses the concept of time as an extended metaphor to relay Victor’s emotional state. As a young man in “frosty December”, there is no life around Victor, and everything is bleak. His life bears no color, much like the cold winter itself; he has his strict religious rules and nothing more. However, the deep cold begins to slowly ebb away as April comes around. Winter concedes to spring as the beautiful Anna brings life and vibrancy to Victor’s previously barren world. He immediately falls for her, as she represents a

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