Who Is the Speaker Speaking to in Musee Des Beauz Arts
The store will not work correctly in the instance when cookies are disabled.
Musée des Beaux Arts Stanza 1
Stanza 1
Lines 1-2
Nigh suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters;
- Check out the foreign syntax of this beginning phrase. It'south everything that your loftier school English language instructor told you non to do. The discipline? Right at the end of the 2nd line. The phrasing? Repetitive. And fifty-fifty afterward the speaker's washed speaking, we yet don't really know what he's talking about.
- Aw, Auden. Y'all're such a rebel! Don't despair, folks. Your friendly Shmoop team is here to sort all of this mess out.
- For example, who are the "Old Masters?" Well, the title of the poem tips us off here: since the speaker is hanging out in an fine art museum ("beaux arts" are, well, artworks), we're guessing that he'south referring to the M Ol' Masters of the art earth – you know, the folks that yous had to study in your intro to Art History class.
- In fact, the speaker volition single out a unmarried Primary later on – but nosotros're getting ahead of ourselves. For now, it's plenty to know that he's referencing the ways that the past ever gets things correct. You know, that sounds a whole lot like what our grandmothers accept been telling usa all our lives, huh?
- There's just i other petty bit of information that'south missing here: what sort of suffering is going on? Well, that'south a good question. And our speaker doesn't seem to be offering many answers.
- Not yet, at any rate. That's how he hooks us. It'south just similar listening to a commercial for the nightly news. You know, the ones where the announcers start off by proverb things similar, "Natural Disasters! Tragedy at Habitation! The One Health Intendance Tip Yous Can't Afford to Miss! ...all that and more when we get back from commercial break." With a lead like that, you lot've just got to keep watching. Or reading.
Lines two-iii
how well, they understood
Its homo position;
- Then we're not really much clearer about what's going on now than we were two lines agone. Sure, people are suffering. And the painters seem to have that covered. Merely what exactly is this suffering? And who'southward doing it?
- Well, for now we'll simply have to be content with the fact that our speaker'south something of a tease. Run into, he knows that his bailiwick affair is sensational enough that he can string united states of america forth for a few more than lines at least – and that's just what he's planning to do.
- Correct now, in fact, he sounds a little flake like a philosopher.
- Isn't that sort of what happens when you go to an art museum? You sit down in front of a painting that catches your eye, and all all of a sudden you're thinking Big Thoughts. You know, the kind that could change the world if you could just call up them long enough to write them downwardly. Only past the time you lot actually practise go to a pen and paper, well…it'south hard to remember simply what that epiphany really was.
- You might recollect that the messiness of these lines mimics that sense of epiphany. Notice how we seem to be edifice a pattern hither?
- Lines spill over into other lines, and phrases stop right smack in the heart of new lines. Sloppy? Well, yeah. Yes it is. But we're guessing that that's sort of what Auden's intending to practise. After all, he's emphasizing the human being (read: "imperfect") nature of most things in life. Especially the bad stuff.
- Notice how bad things never come in nice petty packages? You lot stub your toe, you lot lose your bus pass, and your cat eats your biological science homework. Don't laugh. Information technology's happened to u.s.a.. And all of that – ALL of it – happens at the same time. There's no organizing life.
- And that'south what Auden's form is here to remind us. It's insistently unorganized. Or perfectly imperfect. Either fashion, it'south man. Simply like his subject field thing.
Lines three-4
how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or only walking dully along;
- Ah, at present we're getting somewhere. Imagine this as a painting. (Hey, since our speaker'southward supposedly in a museum, it isn't that crazy. Merely run with it.)
- We may not know who's taking center phase in this little tableaux, but some of the background is commencement to fill in. Information technology'south a crowd scene – or at the very least, an afternoon in the park. The point is, no matter what information technology is that you (or, um, our absent star) is doing, there are lots of other people living lives that are but every bit busy and of import as yours. Or, er, his.
- Could Auden have picked images that are whatsoever more prosaic? Eating? We practice that every day. Opening a window? That doesn't exactly stop traffic.
- But that's precisely the point. When you're doing the most ordinary things in the world, the people who alive across the street from you might just be winning the lottery. Or mourning the loss of a loved one. Y'all just never know.
Lines 5-8
How, when the anile are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, in that location always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the woods:
- All of a sudden, our verse form's full of people. You can just imagine the crowds of people in a neighbor's house, waiting to hear that a new baby has arrived.
- More importantly, yous can probably remember only how unexcited yous were when your little blood brother or sister was born. Sure, information technology seemed absurd when your parents told you that you'd get to be a big sister. Just now Aunt Ida'due south in your kitchen, and she'southward planning to stay there for weeks. And all the presents in the living room? They're non for you. Unexcited? That doesn't fifty-fifty begin to cover what you're feeling right now!
- Auden'southward a master at evoking a scene. All of a sudden, we can come across (and feel) both what the one-time and the young are doing and thinking.
- These lines may seem pretty unimportant, only they're really a microcosm of the verse form equally a whole: our speaker draws u.s. into the emotional world of the poem earlier he locates us in its physical world. Nosotros know just what the children are feeling before we can place them "on a pond on the edge of the wood."
- Hey, afterward all, it's like you lot mom e'er told you lot: it'due south what's inside that counts.
Lines viii-10
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its form
Anyhow in a corner,
- We're guessing that our speaker's dorsum to talking about the Old Masters past now. (Later all, children don't tend to practice much philosophizing. Non when there'south adept ice to be skated upon.)
- If our speaker'south right, however, information technology means that he (and the Old Masters) recall well-nigh martyrdom only a little bit differently than virtually of our Lifetime evening specials exercise. After all, aren't martyrs the folks that get loads and loads of attention? Doesn't their suffering become remembered and written virtually forever and always? Does the name Joan of Arc ring any bells?
- Evidently non. Run into, as our speaker sees information technology, most suffering just gets swallowed up into the everyday hustle and hurry of life. Fifty-fifty martyrs aren't actually thought of as martyrs until after they're expressionless. When Joan of Arc was alive, she was just a girl who happened to take hold of a few bad breaks. (OK, nosotros're exaggerating. But you see what we're saying.)
- Our speaker emphasizes the tangential nature of most suffering – we see that it's happening, simply it's happening somewhere else. At the very least, it's not happening to us.
- Looking at paintings of suffering only emphasizes how detached the speaker is from what'south really going on. After all, he can see information technology. But he sure isn't feeling information technology.
- And if he's at a huge remove from the activity, where does that put united states of america?
Lines 10-12
some untidy spot
Where the dogs continue with their doggy life and the torturer'south horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
- OK, we've got to admit: we beloved this chip of the verse form. But like those before lines about the little kids on the pond, these images are all about the details.
- Sure, someone's getting tortured. Sure, bad things are happening. But there are besides animals (and, nosotros're guessing, people) that are completely oblivious to what'due south going on. There's something and then reassuring near dogs and horses doing the things that dogs and horses practise – no affair what'southward going on behind the scenes.
- Notice how, in one case once again, the images that Auden uses are deliberately prosaic. No fancy-schmancy images or unnecessary adjectives to ataxia upwards the scene. What kind of life does a dog have? A doggy 1. Evidently.
- So again, in that location'due south as well something deliberately ominous growing in the groundwork. No matter how happy these dogs and horses seem to be, we know that something bad is happening just outside of our vision. And our speaker's making u.s.a. cringe with all the anticipation of just what that "something" might be.
This is a premium product
Tired of ads?
Bring together today and never see them again.
Source: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/poetry/musee-des-beaux-arts/summary/stanza-1