Auden, W.H. “Musee des Beaux Arts.” The Oxford Book of American Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. 501.
What do you see when you look at art? Does a painting create question in your mind? W.H. Auden wrote “Musee des Beaux Arts” in response to seeing the painter Brueghel’s Icarus. A ploughman calmly going about his business as a boy falls from the sky. While he had clues to the tragedy (a splash or cry) he does nothing. Auden’s larger observation is about how human response to an event or tragedy can vary; how life goes on beyond that event or tragedy. “Human position” as Auden puts it.
BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188).
~*LunaSea*~ 