Comprehensive notes covering Refugee Blues by W H Auden.
A combination of information from the textbook, The Complete Poetry Resource (Sixth Edition), as well as additional class and video notes.
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Refugee Blues
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.
Stanza One:
Trying to uproot and move to somewhere safe.
“souls” it suggests religious or sacred connotations, and also serves to remove barriers
between people.
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.
Stanza two:
Germany is not safe for them anymore.
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.
Stanza three:
Yew = old tree
Passports are compared to a tree as a tree can grow each ear and replace dead components,
but old passports have no use once they are expired.
This reference is also relevant to how passports are made from paper.
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.
Stanza four:
The use of “banged” indicates aggression.
Bureaucracy was taking away humanity.
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?
Stanza five:
They offered her a chair to sit down, not to chair the committee.
It is an issue that needed to be faced on a daily basis.
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.
Stanza six:
“them” indicates antagonism.
Daily bread = jobs, homes, supplies etc. (reference to religion)
Germans had a sense of anger towards the Jews.
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