1. Musee des Beax Arts
by W.H. Auden
Prepared by
S.Ram Ganesh,
Asst Prof of English(S.F(,
S.B.K.College,
Aruppukottai,
Virudhunagar Dist,
Tamil Nadu
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2. 2
Wynstan Hugh Auden
1907-1973
Wynstan Hugh Auden is
best known as a humanist
poet and was a highly
regarded scholar.
Born in York, England, he
attended Oxford University
from 1925-1928 and wrote
several plays and traveled
abroad before moving to
New York City in 1939,
taking U.S. citizenship in
1946.
He returned to England
just before his death.
3. 3
W.H. Auden
Musee des Beaux Arts
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully
along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
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BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder (b. ca. 1525, Breughel, d. 1569, Bruxelles)
The Numbering at Bethlehem
1566
How, when the aged
are reverently,
passionately
waiting
for the miraculous
birth,
there always must be
children
who did not specially
want it to happen,
skating
on a pond
at the edge of the
wood:
5. 5
Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
The Massacre of the Innocents. 1565-7.
They never forgot
that even the dreadful
martyrdom
must run its course
Anyhow in a corner,
some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on
with their doggy life
and the torturer's horse
scratches its innocent
behind on a tree.
6. 6
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away quite leisurely from the disaster;
The ploughman may have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green water;
And the expensive delicate ship that must have seen something amazing,
A boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
7. 7
ABOUT THE PAINTING:
Peter Breughel, who lived in
the first half of the 16th century
in a little country called Belgium.
His paintings, in general, have
allegorical or moralizing
significance. The "Fall of Icarus"
was his only mythological
subject.
In general Breughel accents the
figures in his drawings with a
delicate line, however, the
persons he paints seem stubby
and at the same time lively. His
contemporaries tended to stick
to religious subjects, but brave
Peter broke away with his own
painting style.
8. 8
background info:
Icarus was a Greek
mythological figure, also known
as the son of Daedalus (famous
for the Labyrinth of Crete). Now
Icarus and his dad were stuck in
Crete, because the King of
Crete wouldn't let them leave.
Daedalus made some wings for
the both of them and gave his
son instruction on how to fly (not
too close to the sea, the water
will soak the wings, and not too
close to the sky, the sun will
melt them). Icarus, however,
appeared to be obstinate and
did fly to close to the sun. This
caused the wax that held his
wings to his body to melt. Icarus
crashed into the sea and died.
