1. How modern is Auden’s attitude to love in the poem Lullaby?
Or
Critically examine Auden’s Lullaby as a modern love poem.
Answer: W.H. Auden was once called as ‘the most famous of the
youngest English poets’ by Daily Worker. For, technically, he was an artist of great
virtuosity, a ceaseless experimenter in verse form, with a fine ear for the rhythm and
music of words. Stephen Spender has described him as “the most accomplished
technician now writing poetry in English.” Auden’s Lay Your Sleeping Head My Love
(Lullaby) is a lyric. The subject matter of the majority of lyrics is love. Here Auden
follows a traditional subject though his treatment is sufficiently modern. Like
Shakespeare and Donne, he has sought to make his poem one in which ‘the
celebration of passionate love goes hand in hand with a reflective meditation upon
the significance of love.’
The first modern note that Auden strikes in this poem is that both the lover and the
beloved are violators of code of chastity. In Browning’s Two in the Campagna the
lover frankly admits that he does not sometimes feel as much attracted to the
ladylove as at other moments. But there both the lovers are loyal to each other. In
the present poem, the lover openly admits that his aim is ‘faithless’. It is also well-
known to her that the beloved is ‘guilty’, i.e. she is as faithless as the lover. Other
defects are also pointed at the same breath. It is that ‘time and fevers turn away’
beauty from them; the grave proves that both of them are ‘ephemeral’. Such
knowledge, however, does not prevent them from coming into close intimacy and
enjoying the sexual game. The knowledge that she is quality and that beauty will
soon disappear and that she is sure to die one day does not prevent the lover from
recognizing the fact that she is ‘entirely beautiful’ to him. Love, even when it is
touched with faithlessness, remains still a romantic and delightful experience to the
lovers.
Another noticeable feature is the depiction of the sexual act in a free and frank
manner. Most poets avoid such depiction considering it crude or immoral. But Auden
is concerned with modern love in which sex takes a prominent position. So the poet
writes: ‘(The) lovers...lie upon/Her tolerant slope/In their ordinary swoon.’ It clearly
states about the tiredness that follows the sexual union.
Though love has its root at the sexual union, the poet shows that it is not without a
spiritual component. In this respect we find Auden’s affinity with Shakespeare,
Spenser, Donne, and Browning to all of whom love was something spiritual. Though
it has a flimsy bases the poet shows that human love still is capable of producing a
transcendental vision ---- a vision that is authentic and its experience one of the
priceless value. Though its credit goes to Venus, the goddess of love and beauty,
the lovers, while lying in their ‘ordinary swoon’, nevertheless have an extraordinary
vision of supernatural sympathy, universal love and hope. Compared to their vision
the hermit who contemplates about God ‘among the glaciers and the rocks’ is
rewarded only with ‘sensual pleasure’ for his hard labour. Thus, in the lovers’ case
Eros leads to Agape whereas in the hermit’s case it is Agape that leads to Eros. By
bringing in the hermit’s case not only is erotic love raised to a higher and purer level
but it is also made clear that erotic love needs not be looked down upon or derided
as is commonly the case.
Another trait of modern love that the poet stresses is that ‘love is little more than a
fleeting illusion in contrast to the hard actualities of love’. The lovers feel that
’certainty, fidelity/ On the stroke of midnight pass/ Like vibrations of a bell.’ The
Or
Critically examine Auden’s Lullaby as a modern love poem.
Answer: W.H. Auden was once called as ‘the most famous of the
youngest English poets’ by Daily Worker. For, technically, he was an artist of great
virtuosity, a ceaseless experimenter in verse form, with a fine ear for the rhythm and
music of words. Stephen Spender has described him as “the most accomplished
technician now writing poetry in English.” Auden’s Lay Your Sleeping Head My Love
(Lullaby) is a lyric. The subject matter of the majority of lyrics is love. Here Auden
follows a traditional subject though his treatment is sufficiently modern. Like
Shakespeare and Donne, he has sought to make his poem one in which ‘the
celebration of passionate love goes hand in hand with a reflective meditation upon
the significance of love.’
The first modern note that Auden strikes in this poem is that both the lover and the
beloved are violators of code of chastity. In Browning’s Two in the Campagna the
lover frankly admits that he does not sometimes feel as much attracted to the
ladylove as at other moments. But there both the lovers are loyal to each other. In
the present poem, the lover openly admits that his aim is ‘faithless’. It is also well-
known to her that the beloved is ‘guilty’, i.e. she is as faithless as the lover. Other
defects are also pointed at the same breath. It is that ‘time and fevers turn away’
beauty from them; the grave proves that both of them are ‘ephemeral’. Such
knowledge, however, does not prevent them from coming into close intimacy and
enjoying the sexual game. The knowledge that she is quality and that beauty will
soon disappear and that she is sure to die one day does not prevent the lover from
recognizing the fact that she is ‘entirely beautiful’ to him. Love, even when it is
touched with faithlessness, remains still a romantic and delightful experience to the
lovers.
Another noticeable feature is the depiction of the sexual act in a free and frank
manner. Most poets avoid such depiction considering it crude or immoral. But Auden
is concerned with modern love in which sex takes a prominent position. So the poet
writes: ‘(The) lovers...lie upon/Her tolerant slope/In their ordinary swoon.’ It clearly
states about the tiredness that follows the sexual union.
Though love has its root at the sexual union, the poet shows that it is not without a
spiritual component. In this respect we find Auden’s affinity with Shakespeare,
Spenser, Donne, and Browning to all of whom love was something spiritual. Though
it has a flimsy bases the poet shows that human love still is capable of producing a
transcendental vision ---- a vision that is authentic and its experience one of the
priceless value. Though its credit goes to Venus, the goddess of love and beauty,
the lovers, while lying in their ‘ordinary swoon’, nevertheless have an extraordinary
vision of supernatural sympathy, universal love and hope. Compared to their vision
the hermit who contemplates about God ‘among the glaciers and the rocks’ is
rewarded only with ‘sensual pleasure’ for his hard labour. Thus, in the lovers’ case
Eros leads to Agape whereas in the hermit’s case it is Agape that leads to Eros. By
bringing in the hermit’s case not only is erotic love raised to a higher and purer level
but it is also made clear that erotic love needs not be looked down upon or derided
as is commonly the case.
Another trait of modern love that the poet stresses is that ‘love is little more than a
fleeting illusion in contrast to the hard actualities of love’. The lovers feel that
’certainty, fidelity/ On the stroke of midnight pass/ Like vibrations of a bell.’ The
