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Poet: W. H. Auden
Poem: Lay Your Sleeping Head, My Love
Comment 8 of 8, added on November 4th, 2009 at 10:05 PM.
Auden
Although, indeed, Wystan Hugh Auden was a homosexual, who is to say that the poem is directly a personal reflection? Many of Auden's poems are "spoken" through others, which may be an attempt at portraying situation that he himself may not have experienced. Despite the fact that "Lay your sleeping head, my love" comes across as an intimate and personal poem from Auden's own experience, the poem makes reference to "her tolerant enchanted slope", which is clearly about a woman, and the "ordinary swoon" of "lovers as they lie" - these could be possible references to co conformity or a feeling of isolation or oppression about his sexuality; the need to feel "ordinary" and accepted. No one can ever truly understand Auden's poetry now that he has passed away, and although your interpretation of his works may be entirely different to my own, try to focus on how the words make you feel, rather than overanalysing and dissecting their beauty into something of mere logic and common sense.
molly. from Australia
Comment 7 of 8, added on November 4th, 2009 at 4:13 AM.
lay ur sleeping head
“LAY YOUR SLEEPING HEAD, MY LOVE”
- Written January 1937
- 4 stanzas
- Melancholic undertones
- First person, creates intimate feeling, addressing ‘my love’
- Love poem
- STANZA 1
- ‘human on my faithless arm’, human suggests flaws, not perfect- doesn’t sound like a criticism due to the gentle tone
- Faithless implies lack of commitment and trust, not faithful
- Grounded appraisal of persona and lover, despite lullaby tone
- Ephemeral= transient, passing
- ‘time’ impacts us all, even the ‘thoughtful children’-changing their beauty
- ‘Ephemeral’- life goes on, will pass, time’s passage can’t be altered
- ‘But’- flies in the face off what we believe about time
- Suggesting that nothing can/should take this moment
- ‘lie’ –double meaning, sits with ‘mortal, guilty’, creating an image matching that of the persona in line 2
- Nonetheless “the entirely beautiful”- beautiful is used as a noun, rather than adjective, making the sentence not entire, also makes reference to Yeats poem
- STANZA 2- syntax is deliberately convoluted,
- Draws parallels between ‘agape’ and ‘eros’
- “Soul and body have no bounds”- means that we are at one with our bodies,
- -in the act of love, the goddess of love (VENUS) sends a ‘grave’ vision, because their love renders them spiritually open
- The vision is not simple- it is serious/grave (of Godly “sympathy, universal love and hope”)
- ‘grave’ also implies the spectre of death, which time ensures will claim us all eventually- could also have sexual overtones as an orgasm is sometimes called ‘the little death’
- In reverse, the hermit has an ‘abstract insight’, that leads to ‘sensual ecstasy’ and a strong physical and emotional response, refers to ‘glaciers’ and ‘rocks’ because hermits’ often live in high mountain caves
- STANZA 3
- Image of certainty and fidelity, as ephemeral, simile- ‘pass like vibrations of a bell’
- ‘Fashionable madmen’= conservative voices of protest, with the ‘pedantic, boring cry’- implies drones on from generation to generation
- ‘But’ halfway through the line, clear juxtaposition with the forces that will see it (the moment) destroyed, ‘from this night not...not...not a kiss nor look be lost’- repetition of the ‘not’ creates a sense of a list of intimacies to be appreciated in the moment
- STANZA 4 – when ‘the moment’ passes, “this night”
- All that is good, passes with time ‘dies’
- Last stanza reads like a prayer, gentle plea ‘let the winds...’
- That the natural elements may show ‘eye and knocking heart’, sufficient ‘sweetness’ that he may ‘find the mortal word enough’ i.e. that he will want to go on living/into the world
- ‘noons of dryness’ =periods of drought and hunger- hard times
- ‘involuntary powers’, perhaps the ‘supernatural forces’ again
- ‘nights of insult’- human evil ‘let you pass’
- ‘watched by every human love’- replaces personal love with universal human love, without me experience universal love- contrasts first line, eros to agape in the face of all the difficulty that we/lives can cause
yoyo from Australia
Comment 6 of 8, added on February 10th, 2009 at 11:34 AM.
I didn't like these analysis.
You seem to have completely misunderstood the poem, because to start off with, Auden was a homosexual, so the poem was not writen about a 'lady'.
And second, you have taken the analysis to a context different to what the poem is actually about!
Prostitutes? One night stands? Don't think so!
Sara O'brien from United Kingdom
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Although, indeed, Wystan Hugh Auden was a homosexual, who is to say that the poem is directly a personal reflection? Many of Auden's poems are "spoken" through others, which may be an attempt at portraying situation that he himself may not have experienced. Despite the fact that "Lay your sleeping head, my love" comes across as an intimate and personal poem from Auden's own experience, the poem makes reference to "her tolerant enchanted slope", which is clearly about a woman, and the "ordinary swoon" of "lovers as they lie" - these could be possible references to co conformity or a feeling of isolation or oppression about his sexuality; the need to feel "ordinary" and accepted. No one can ever truly understand Auden's poetry now that he has passed away, and although your interpretation of his works may be entirely different to my own, try to focus on how the words make you feel, rather than overanalysing and dissecting their beauty into something of mere logic and common sense.
molly. from Australia