Who Is the Speaker Speaking to in Musee Des Beauz Arts
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Musée des Beaux Arts Stanza 1
Stanza 1
Lines i-2
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters;
- Check out the strange syntax of this beginning phrase. It's everything that your high school English teacher told yous not to practise. The subject? Correct at the cease of the 2d line. The phrasing? Repetitive. And even after the speaker'due south done speaking, we still don't really know what he's talking about.
- Aw, Auden. You're such a insubordinate! 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 championship of the poem tips united states off here: since the speaker is hanging out in an art museum ("beaux arts" are, well, artworks), nosotros're guessing that he'southward referring to the Grand Ol' Masters of the art globe – you know, the folks that you had to study in your intro to Art History form.
- In fact, the speaker will single out a single Master later on – but we're getting ahead of ourselves. For at present, information technology's enough to know that he's referencing the ways that the past always gets things right. Y'all know, that sounds a whole lot like what our grandmothers have been telling the states all our lives, huh?
- At that place's just one other little bit of information that's missing hither: what sort of suffering is going on? Well, that's a good question. And our speaker doesn't seem to be offering many answers.
- Not withal, at any rate. That'due south how he hooks u.s.. Information technology'due south simply like listening to a commercial for the nightly news. Yous know, the ones where the announcers starting time off by saying things like, "Natural Disasters! Tragedy at Domicile! The I Wellness Intendance Tip You Can't Afford to Miss! ...all that and more than when we get back from commercial break." With a pb like that, yous've just got to keep watching. Or reading.
Lines 2-three
how well, they understood
Its human position;
- And so we're not really much clearer most what's going on now than we were two lines agone. Certain, people are suffering. And the painters seem to have that covered. Merely what exactly is this suffering? And who'due south doing it?
- Well, for now we'll simply have to exist content with the fact that our speaker's something of a tease. See, he knows that his subject matter is sensational enough that he can string the states along for a few more than lines at least – and that'southward merely what he's planning to do.
- Right now, in fact, he sounds a little bit like a philosopher.
- Isn't that sort of what happens when you lot go to an art museum? Y'all sit down downwards in front of a painting that catches your middle, and of a sudden you're thinking Big Thoughts. You know, the kind that could change the world if you could just remember them long plenty to write them down. But past the time you actually do get to a pen and paper, well…it'due south hard to remember merely what that epiphany actually was.
- Yous might recall that the messiness of these lines mimics that sense of epiphany. Notice how we seem to be edifice a pattern here?
- Lines spill over into other lines, and phrases stop right smack in the middle of new lines. Sloppy? Well, yes. Yeah it is. But nosotros're guessing that that'due south sort of what Auden's intending to practice. After all, he'south emphasizing the homo (read: "imperfect") nature of most things in life. Specially the bad stuff.
- Notice how bad things never come in nice little packages? You stub your toe, y'all lose your bus pass, and your cat eats your biology homework. Don't express joy. It's happened to us. And all of that – ALL of it – happens at the same time. There'southward no organizing life.
- And that's what Auden's grade is here to remind us. Information technology'south insistently unorganized. Or perfectly imperfect. Either mode, information technology'south human being. But like his bailiwick matter.
Lines three-four
how information technology takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
- Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Imagine this as a painting. (Hey, since our speaker'southward supposedly in a museum, it isn't that crazy. Only run with information technology.)
- We may non know who's taking center stage in this little tableaux, just some of the groundwork is beginning to fill in. It's a oversupply scene – or at the very least, an afternoon in the park. The betoken is, no matter what it is that y'all (or, um, our absent star) is doing, there are lots of other people living lives that are just as busy and of import as yours. Or, er, his.
- Could Auden have picked images that are any more prosaic? Eating? We do that every twenty-four hours. Opening a window? That doesn't exactly end traffic.
- Merely that's precisely the point. When yous're doing the nigh ordinary things in the globe, the people who alive across the street from yous might just be winning the lottery. Or mourning the loss of a loved one. You just never know.
Lines five-viii
How, when the anile are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, at that place always must exist
Children who did not particularly want it to happen, skating
On a swimming at the edge of the wood:
- All of a sudden, our poem'due south 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 than importantly, y'all tin can probably remember just how unexcited you were when your little brother or sister was born. Sure, it seemed cool when your parents told you that yous'd become to be a big sister. But now Aunt Ida'due south in your kitchen, and she's planning to stay at that place for weeks. And all the presents in the living room? They're not for you. Unexcited? That doesn't fifty-fifty begin to cover what you're feeling right now!
- Auden's a master at evoking a scene. All of a sudden, we tin see (and feel) both what the old and the young are doing and thinking.
- These lines may seem pretty unimportant, but they're really a microcosm of the verse form as a whole: our speaker draws us into the emotional globe of the poem earlier he locates united states in its physical world. Nosotros know just what the children are feeling earlier we tin can place them "on a swimming on the edge of the woods."
- Hey, after all, it's like yous mom ever told you: it's what'southward inside that counts.
Lines eight-10
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner,
- We're guessing that our speaker'south back to talking about the Onetime Masters by now. (Later on all, children don't tend to do much philosophizing. Not when at that place's good ice to be skated upon.)
- If our speaker's right, even so, information technology ways that he (and the Quondam Masters) think almost martyrdom just a lilliputian bit differently than most of our Lifetime evening specials exercise. After all, aren't martyrs the folks that get loads and loads of attention? Doesn't their suffering get remembered and written near forever and ever? Does the name Joan of Arc ring any bells?
- Apparently not. See, as our speaker sees it, most suffering just gets swallowed up into the everyday hustle and bustle of life. Even martyrs aren't really thought of as martyrs until after they're dead. When Joan of Arc was alive, she was merely a girl who happened to catch a few bad breaks. (OK, nosotros're exaggerating. But yous see what we're saying.)
- Our speaker emphasizes the tangential nature of nearly suffering – we see that information technology'south happening, simply information technology'south happening somewhere else. At the very least, it'southward not happening to us.
- Looking at paintings of suffering but emphasizes how discrete the speaker is from what's actually going on. Later on all, he tin run across it. Simply he sure isn't feeling information technology.
- And if he's at a huge remove from the action, where does that put us?
Lines x-12
some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
- OK, we've got to admit: we dearest this scrap of the poem. But like those earlier lines nigh the little kids on the swimming, these images are all about the details.
- Sure, someone's getting tortured. Sure, bad things are happening. But there are also animals (and, we're guessing, people) that are completely oblivious to what'due south going on. There'due south something and so reassuring about dogs and horses doing the things that dogs and horses practise – no matter what's going on behind the scenes.
- Notice how, once again, the images that Auden uses are deliberately prosaic. No fancy-schmancy images or unnecessary adjectives to clutter upwards the scene. What kind of life does a dog accept? A doggy 1. Obviously.
- Then over again, at that place's 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 us cringe with all the apprehension of just what that "something" might exist.
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Source: https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/poetry/musee-des-beaux-arts/summary/stanza-1
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