Auden, W(ystan) H(ugh) 1907–1973

Auden, an Anglo-American poet, essayist, dramatist, editor, and critic,

was one of the twentieth-century's greatest poets. The body of poetry that
Auden left is distinguished by its remarkable versatility, a variety that
encompasses form, metre, subject, and theme.

The Diaspora

How he survived them they could never understand :

Had they not beggared him themselves to prove
They could not live without their dogmas or their land?

No worlds they drove him from were ever big enough:

How could it be the earth the Unconfined

Meant when It bade them set no limits to their love?

And he fulfilled the r6le for which he was designed :

On heat with fear, he drew their terrors to him,

And was a godsend to the lowest of mankind.

Till there was no place left where they could still pursue him
Except that exile which he called his Race.
But, envying him even that, they plunged right through him
Into a land of mirrors without time or space.
And all they had to strike now was the human face.
The Diaspora is one of Auden’s celebrated sonnets. Originally it was part of a longer poem entitled
New Year Letter published in 1941. In the poem, this sonnet occurs in the situation in which Auden
treats of the persecution of Christ by the Jews. Later it was extracted from New Year Letter, and
published in his Collected Shorter Poems (1930-1944), in 1950. Its publication caused a lot of
discussion in Britain and America. Actually it was occasioned by Hitler’s persecution of the Jews
in Germany and in the occupied countries during the years 1938-1940.

Summary(optional)
The poem is titled as The Diaspora, which means dispersion, particularly, of the Jews after
the Babylonian captivity. It also refers to the dispersion of the Jews in the Age of Christ’s
Twelve Apostles. In relation to the present poem, title also means the dispersion of the
Jews and their emigration to other countries, from Germany and the countries occupied
by her during the World War II (1939-45).
In a gloomy mood, Auden writes that the Jews have never reconciled themselves to the
survival of Christianity after Christ’s crucification. They persecuted him like anything. They
pursued him to the cross. Thereafter they vilified his system of religion and ridiculed his
Heaven as a land of mirages. Their sin has ultimately recoiled upon themselves. The Nazi
Germans are persecuting the Jews, as if to punish them for the sin committed by their
ancient ancestors about two thousand years ago.
The Jews of early Christian centuries could never understand how Jesus Christ and his
system of religion could survive his persecution and crucifixion. Their ancestors had
beggared him, pursued him to the Cross, and had him crucified. Their intolerance proved
that they loved their God called Jehovah, their Jewish religion, and their land Israel more
than their lives.

Their God had commanded them to love and worship only it, with all their heart and in all
places. Hence they the attempted to drive Christ and his faith not only out of the bounds
of earth but also out of the bounds of their heaven. Yet Christ completed his mission of
the prophet for which he was born. But his persecutors were filled with envy at his religion
of the Cross, too. They vilified his system of religion to the last degree. They represented
his Heaven as a land of mirages.
And now in the present age their sin of persecuting Christ has again recoiled upon the
heads of their children. The Nazi Germans are persecuting the human body of the Jews,
and causing the diaspora, as if to punish them for the sin of Christ’s persecution
committed by their ancient ancestors about two thousand years ago.

In the present sonnet, Auden has employed he, his, and him for Jesus Christ, and they,
them and their for the Jews. In the last line, they, has been used to refer to the Nazi
German. Auden has adopted this device to avoid falling into any religious controversy.

The Diaspora Analysis

How he survived them they could never understand:

(…)
Meant when it bade them set no limits to their love?
The above six lines occur in the poem entitled The Diaspora, by W.H. Auden. Through
these lines, the poet says that The Hebrews (i.e. the Jews of early centuries) could never
understand how Jesus Christ and the system of his religion principles (now called
Christianity) could survive his merciless persecution and his crucifixion. For they had done
everything they could to destroy him lock, stock, and barrel.) They had reduced him to
beggary (got him arrested and crucified). Their intolerance proved that they loved their
Jewish religion and their land Israel more than their lives. So they could not allow Jesus
Christ to emanate his new religion in their land. Their infinite God Jehovah had
commanded them to love and worship only It (and no other god), by all their heart and in
the entire place. Hence they attempted to drive Christ and his religion not only out of the
defined lands on earth but also out of the world’s of infinite Heaven.
And he fulfilled the role for which he was designed:
Through this line, the poet says, despite all, Jesus Christ performed or completed the
mission he was born to carry out. Here the poet is talking about why Jesus Christ had
taken birth on this earth, and what his mission is after being born on this earth.
On heat with fear, he drew their terrors to him,
(…)
Except that exile which he called his Race.
Here the poet states that Jesus Christ was a Prophet of the poorest of mankind. Yet
hearing his teachings the rich and leading Jews were filled with fear. And a fire of ill-will
towards him began to burn in their hearts. Soon they began to persecute him for his
religious views. Yet he voluntarily submitted himself to their cruel measures of persecution
and continued emanating his religious principles of love, charity, etc. But his persecutors
pursued him to the place beyond which they could not pursue him any longer. The place
was the frame of the cross which exiled him from the mortal world through crucifixion. The
Cross was also the symbol of the body of Christians whom he had described as the true
human beings of his race of mankind. The poet implies that the Jews crucified Jesus
Christ on the Cross, believing that it would be the end of him and his system of religion.
But to their dismay, the Cross became a symbol of Christ’s religion which attracted
countless people and inspired them to become Christians.

But, envying him even that, they plunged right through him
(…)
And all they had to strike now was the human face.
Through the above extract, the poet describes the persecutors behaviour of the Jews
towards Christianity after Christ’s crucifixion. The poet also points to the persecution of
the Jews consequent upon their sin of persecuting Jesus Christ. He says that after
Christ’s crucifixion, his system of religion began to flourish. But the Jews of those ancient
times were filled with envy at Christ’s religion of the Cross, too. Their wise men plunged
straight into the substance of his teachings and represented them as insubstantial. The
also argued that Christianity led to a Heaven of eternal and infinite mirages and illusions.

Their efforts to destroy Christianity proved futile and this religion spread far and wide. And
now in the present age the sin of persecuting Jesus Christ has again recoiled upon the
heads of the present-day Jews. The Nazi Germans started persecuting the human body
of Judaism (i.e. the doctrines and the rites of the Jews), as if to punish the Jews for the
sin committed by their ancient ancestors about two thousand years ago. Auden implies
that the penalty of the sin of Christ’s persecution is persecution and diaspora of the Jews.
Petition
Sir, no man's enemy, forgiving all
But will his negative inversion, be prodigal:
Send to us power and light, a sovereign touch
Curing the intolerable neural itch,
The exhaustion of weaning, the liar's quinsy,
And the distortions of ingrown virginity.
Prohibit sharply the rehearsed response
And gradually correct the coward's stance;
Cover in time with beams those in retreat
That, spotted, they turn though the reverse were great;
Publish each healer that in city lives
Or country houses at the end of drives;
Harrow the house of the dead; look shining at
New styles of architecture, a change of heart
The sonnet, Sir, No Man’s Enemy, which is also known as the Petition poem, by W.H.
Auden is addressed to the strong feeling of sexual love personified as love-god. Auden
here images it as a glorious god whose facer radiates beams of light and power. As
such, this god, called in psychology Eros is the embodiment of the “Life-force” in man.

Sir, No Man’s Enemy (Petition Poem)

Summary
The poem, Petition, was composed by Auden in October, 1929. Its earlier title was Sir, No Man’s Enemy.
It was published in the poetic volume, Poems (1930. It was the last poem in the volume. At the time of
its composition, Auden was a psychologist poet. Under the influence of Sigmund Freud, George
Groddeck, Homer Lane, Johm Layard, an D.H. Lawrence, he believed that man’s ‘psychological ills’ were
‘greater’ than this ‘political’ ones. His belief can be stated as follows: Sexual love is the main urge in
man. It draws man and woman together. If it is allowed a free play, it bursts forth as the Life-force,
called Id in man.

But there is another force too in man. It is the death instinct, which reflects itself as the
fear of death. It lies vested in the faculty of mind and is called the Super-ego. So the
belief under which the present poem was composed can be summed up as follows:
Modern human culture and civilization have systematically repressed sexual love in
man and in society for ages and ages. The result is that society is ruled by morals and
laws of the Super-ego which is the Death-force to sexual love.
In effect, society is ruled by Death-force and man and society are ‘sick’, or rather,
inhibited by death-wish. Let me tell you here that society and individuals are sick
because men and their culture have repressed vital human forces (in themselves). The
Super-ego has nearly defeated the ‘id’ (i.e. Life-force). Cure demands a change of
heart, a change in the individuals. The power of the super-ego must be overthrown and
the languishing ‘id’ released from its fetters.’

Theme of Petition
Evidently the theme of the poem is Auden’s psychological message. It is that constant
repression of the erotic ‘Id’ causes neural and physical diseases in men and women. It
also makes them cowardly, spiritually exhausted, and sexually frozen. Their repressive
response to sexual love may be traced back to their cultural inbreeding. The modern
society consists of the spiritually and sexually ‘dead’. The need of the hour is a new
attitude towards sexual love and its role in life. So messages of the new Freudian
culture should be conveyed to all the nooks and corners of the human society. And
there must be a change of heart in favour of the new culture of Freudian sexualism.

Petition Analysis
Sir, no man’s enemy, forgiving all
(…)
And the distortions of ingrown virginity.
Respectfully addressing sexual love personified as love-god, Auden, the poet of this
poem, which can be read in full here, prays it to be lavish of its grace on mankind. He
adds that it is nobody’s enemy as the life-force. It forgives even all those who indulge in
sexual gratification secretly and indirectly. Yet it will never forgive man’s repressing his
sexual impulses and urges. For such restrain on, and habitual shrinking from, sexual
gratification turns its force inwards as the destructive death-force). Auden then prays it
to fill us with power of life-force and enlightenment regarding the role of erotic impulse.
He also prays it to invest our sexual activity with such panacea power that can cure
neural itch, exhaustion caused by a constant repression of sexual desires, inflammation
of the throat or tonsils caused in a person by his lying about his sexual life, and the
tumours of cancer which grown in the wombs of unmarried women when they repress
their desires for sexual life and children.
Prohibit sharply the rehearsed response
(…)
New styles of architecture, a change of heart.
In the further lines, the poet is shown praying the love-god punctually to check man’s
inbred repressive response to sexual impulse and desire, and gradually to set right his
cowardly attitude towards realities of sexual-love in life. Eros is also prayed to send, in
good time, its beams of light into those people who are running away from the realities
of sexual urges in life, so that, being freed from the spots of cowardice towards sexual
love, they may turn back to obey its commands, even though their return were difficult.

The love-god is also prayed to send forth to the public every healer’s message whether
he lives in a town or in the country. Finally, the poet prays it to plough and sow with
seeds of sexual-love the graveyard called modern society whose members are
spiritually and sexually dead. It is also prayed to look, with favour, on the ways of the
new Freudian culture of sexualism and also to bring about such change in the human
heart that it may love this culture deeply.

Rhythm and Versification in Petition

The rhythm of the poem is syllable-stressed, much of it is iambic. In some verses it has
been sweetened with alliteration. In the fifth and the tenth lines the syllable-stress rhythm
has been balanced against speech rhythms. The meter is characterized by variety,
although the syllable-stress rhythm dominates everywhere. For example, the poem
consists of seven couplets. In the first couplet, the first lien is an iambic pentameter
whereas the second line is a hexameter. The rhymes of couplets are assonantal and
consonantal. For instance, in the third couplet, ‘quinsy’ has been made to rhyme with
‘virginity’. In the last couplet, ‘at’ has been made to rhyme with ‘heart’. The poem is a
sonnet made up of seven rhymed couplets. It has been constructed on the pattern of the
sonnet of Rainer Rilke (1875-1926), the great Austrian poet who wrote in German. Auden
was impressed by his poetry during his sojourn in Germany.

Petition Conclusion
The sonnet, Petition, which also bears another title, Sir, No Man’s Enemy, reflects
Auden’s immature style, prosodic skill, and the impact of Freudianism on his poetic
thought. It belongs to his early poetry about which it can be said that the voice, most
high filled with diagnostic precision and epigrammatic assurance, suggests that here is
a man who knows what he is talking about. On the whole, this sonnet is not bad; rather
it is one of the most chronologically diagnostic of Auden’s poems. It is typical of Auden’s
early poetry, both in its matter and mann

Analysis of W.H. Auden’s ‘Petition’

W. H. Auden is considered to be both a controversial and influential poet. He was
raised in an Anglo-Catholic household, which is where he first fell in love with
music and language. The title of this poem is widely known as “Petition,” but that
title wasn’t added until later collections; Auden’s early poems appeared without
titles (Greenblatt 2422). A petition is an earnest request or entreaty; in this poem
Auden is petitioning God to help change the state of humanity, which has declined
considerably, in his opinion, due to both the lack of belief in God and God’s hands-
off.

This poem was written in 1929, 11 years after the end of WWI. The Great War was
hard on everyone involved — from the women, children, and elderly at home to
the soldiers on the front line. The economy changed during the war: people didn’t
have the money to spend on frivolous things as they once did; food was rationed
and often unavailable, so people went hungry. On the front line, soldiers were
forced to kill. If they didn’t kill the enemy first, they risked being killed themselves
or having their loved ones killed later on. Many soldiers returned home wounded.
As the war dragged on, faith in God began to wean. The whole landscape of life was
altered dramatically during the war and again after the war was finally over. There
was an economic boom; people began to overindulge, because they had been
deprived for so long. Enjoying oneself trumped spirituality, which lead to the
completely upside down world that Auden speaks about in this poem.

The speaker beseeches God to change his nature of inaction to one of action, so
that humanity can be saved; at the same he is both mocking God and expressing
his unbearable sadness as to the current state of things. The first line of the poem
begins with a polite, honorific address to God in the form of “sir” (line 1). The word
sir is often used in formal correspondence and when addressing someone who is
of superior rank or status. He starts this way so that he appears to be humble,
hoping that God will listen to the one person who still believes in Him. The speaker
then moves on to say that God is “no man’s enemy, forgiving all,” which in itself is
a very sarcastic statement (line 1). If God is supposed to be the enemy of no man,
then why does he forgive all indiscretions? We learn by making mistakes and then
having to face the consequences for our actions, so if there are no consequences,
what is the point of doing the right thing? The speaker is trying to point out that
God’s hands-off approach is not benefiting us; instead, it is ensuring that society
will descend into total anarchy, and then all will be lost. The speaker wonders if
God’s “negative inversion”-going from a state of inaction to one of action- will be
“prodigal” (giving or yielding profusely) (line 2). Still, the speaker believes that
the world needs “a sovereign’s touch,” so he begs God to send down his power and
light-his goodness and love; in order to cure humanity (line 3).

The speaker implores God to cure the “intolerable neural itch”-the overwhelming
desire to do evil deeds or commit sins (line 4). In lines five and six, the speaker
asks God to save him from the “exhaustion of weaning, the liar’s quinsy, and the
distortions of ingrown virginity.” The speaker is saying that he is extremely tired
of being the only one, who is trying to save (or wean) humanity from its
dependency on the guarantee that no matter what they do in life they will be
forgiven in death. Quinsy is another word for tonsillitis; thus, the act of weaning a
liar from his quinsy means to cure someone of telling lies or spreading disbelief.
“Ingrown virginity” is another example that the speaker puts forth to show how
the world has become completely backwards and unbalanced due to the absence
of God. Quinsy and ingrown virginity are both unnatural states of being and it is
the speaker’s objective to restore the natural or proper state of being of humanity.

In lines seven to fourteen, the speaker takes on a more authoritative tone and
demands that God does as he asks. He tells God to prohibit severely the use of “the
rehearsed responses,” such as, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it,’ or it’s not my fault,’
when man comes before God, so that gradually He will be able to correct the
“coward’s stance” (line 7-8). The goal is to make man accountable for their actions;
thus, turning cowards or non-believers into believers once again. And those non-
believers who “retreat” or flee from God must bask in God’s light, curing them of
their disbelief. “Beams” in line nine has a double meaning, it can also be referring
to Christ, who was nailed to two beams of wood in the shape of a cross. The
speaker wants the names of God’s healers-servants of God, ie. Priests, ministers
etc.-to be published publicly or in other words he wants God to appoint those
select few, who will aide him in restoring order and balance to the world-much
like the apostles did after Jesus died on the cross. “Harrow” is defined as “an
agricultural implement with spikelike teeth or upright disks, drawn chiefly over
plowed land to level it, break up clods, root up weeds, etc.,” but in this poem the
speaker is asking God to act like a harrow and make “the house of the dead” a
sacred place (or holy ground). The speaker wants God to shine his light on the
“new styles of architecture”-meaning the modern world-and have a change of
heart about letting man do as they please.