Brief Question in W. H. Auden's Poems

• Who was W. H. Auden?

• What jobs did Auden do in America?

• How was Auden honoured in England?

• When was Auden awarded the Pulitzer Prize?

• When was the poem “Lullaby” published?

• What is the theme of “Lullaby”?

• Why does the poet-lover call his beloved “human”?

• What proves the child to be ephemeral?

• What does “the living creature” refer to?

• Who is Venus?

• What is “supernatural sympathy”?

• How do the lovers resemble hermits?

• What is the meaning of “Noons of dryness”?

• What does the poet mean by “human love”?

• What does “Nights of insult” refer to?

• How does Auden show the permanence of art?

• How does Auden picture Yeats’s death?

• How does Auden satirize materialistic outlook?

• What is people’s illusion about their freedom?

• What is “the parish of rich women”?

• How does Auden estimate Ireland?

• What is “intellectual disgrace”?

• How may Yeats’s poetry help in crisis?

• Who was Achilles?

• What battlefield picture does Thetis see?

• What is the meaning of “a voice without a face”?

• What does “the shining metal” mean?

• What do the “three pale figures” symbolize?

• What does a “weed-choked field” symbolize?

• Why did Hephaestus hobble away?

• What moral comes from “The Shield of Achilles”?

• What kind of poem is “Petition”?

• What is the theme of “Petition”?

• Which modern diseases need “sovereign touch”?

• How is social change possible, according to Auden?

• Who are the “old Masters”?

• What is the “miraculous birth”?

• What is “Brueghel’s Icarus”?

• What is the theme of “Musée des Beaux Arts”?

• Who are “the inconstant ones”?

• Why are the limestone men “unable to conceive a god”?

• What is the “nomad’s comb”?

• Who are “the best” and “the worst”?

• What do the “granite wastes” symbolize?

• What do the “clays and gravels” symbolize?

• What is an “anti-mythological myth”?

• What lesson is in “In Praise of Limestone”?

• What does the title “Lullaby” signify?

• Whom does Achilles refer to?

• What is Auden’s message in “Lullaby”?

• Who “die morally,” according to Auden?

• What is Auden’s message in “Lullaby”?

• Who is the mother of Achilles?

• What is the source of the title “Out, Out—”?

• Why does Auden call the lover faithless?

• What does the title “The Shield of Achilles” signify?

• How is modern man a prisoner of society?

• Who is the “She” in “The Shield of Achilles”?