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Summary Refugee Blue poem analysis
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A full analysis of W.H Auden's poem " Refugee Blues" for the IEB poetry syllabus of
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Refugees Blues- Wystan Hugh Auden (W.H Auden)Biographical Info
Born (1907-1973)
British poet – went to Oxford.
He married Erika Mann (to help her escape the Nazis)
Auden is writing as a Modernist Poet
Modernists – say it as it is & questions modern civilisation
There is no trust/faith in social rule – major doubt
Refugees blues – is pages on pages (not only the poem we are given)
MESSAGE/MEANING
Considering the experiences of Jewish refugees- fleeing from Nazi German in the build-up to
WW2
What was the reaction to these refugees:
- The complete disregard
- Indifference
- Hostility
- Antagonism
This is how inhumanity is created.
What is a refuge?
A person forced to leave his/her country to escape war/persecution.
From:
Fugure = flee
re = back
Blues:
Music genre:
- Specific structure
- Relates to a specific emotion/feeling
(sadness/down)
Refugee blue = hopelessness/ full of anguish.
STRUCTURE
- Dramatic Monologue
- Reveals the speaker’s intimate/ thoughts and emotions.
- Follows a blues genre. Has. A refrain – repetition “my dear” (acts as
chorus)
- Regular structure 12 x 3 Lines
- Rhyme scheme: AAB
- Refrain shows the hard reality.
TONE/ MOOD
- Hopeless creates an uncomfortable mood
- anguish
- Bleak
- Intimate
- Despair
, Key:
__Natural state
__Society’s cruelty/evil
__Couple’s position
__Pathetic fallacy
Say this city has ten million souls,
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.
Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.
In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,
Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that
The consul banged the table and said,
"If you've got no passport you're officially dead":
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.
Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;
Asked me politely to return next year:
But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?
Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said;
"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread":
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.
Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;
It was Hitler over Europe, saying, "They must die":
O we were in his mind, my dear, O we were in his mind.
Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.
Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.
Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.
Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,
A thousand windows and a thousand doors:
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.
Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.
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