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1、Muse des Beaux Arts (poem)From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaThe Auden collection where the poem first appeared in book formLandscape with the Fall of Icarusin the Muse des Beaux ArtsMuse des Beaux Arts (French for Museum of Fine Arts) is a poem written by W. H. Auden in December 1938 while he was
2、 staying inBrussels, Belgium with Christopher Isherwood.1 It was first published under the title Palais des beaux arts (Palace of Fine Arts) in the Spring 1939 issue of New Writing, a modernist magazine edited by John Lehmann.2 It next appeared in the collected volume of verseAnother Time (New York:
3、 Random House, 1940), which was followed four months later by the English edition (London: Faber and Faber, 1940).3 The poems title derives from the Muses Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels, famous for its collection of Early Netherlandish painting. Auden visited the Muse and would have s
4、een a number of works by the Old Masters of his second line, includingPieter Bruegel the Elder (ca. 15251569).Contentshide 1Synopsis 2Bruegels influence 3Cultural legacy 4References 5External linksSynopsiseditAudens free verse poem is divided into two parts, the first of which describes scenes of su
5、ffering and dreadful martyrdom which rarely break into our quotidian routines: While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully / along. The second half of the poem refers, through the poetic device of ekphrasis, to the painting Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (ca. 1560s), at
6、 the time thought to be by Bruegel, but now usually regarded as an early copy of a lost work. Audens description allows us to visualise this specific moment and instance of the indifference of the world to suffering, how everything turns away / Quite leisurely from the disaster . the white legs disa
7、ppearing into the green. The disaster in question is the fall of Icarus, caused by his flying too close to the sun and melting his waxen wings.Auden achieves much in the poem, not only with his long and irregular lines, rhythms, and vernacular phrasing (dogs go on with their doggy life), but also wi
8、th this balance between what appear to be general examples About suffering and a specific example of a mythical boys fall into the sea. Auden scholars and art historians have suggested that the first part of the poem also relies on at least two additional paintings by Bruegel which Auden would have
9、seen in the same second-floor gallery of the museum.4 These identifications are based on a not quite exact, but nonetheless evocative, series of correspondences between details in the paintings and Audens language. However, none show a martyrdom in the usual sense, suggesting that other works are al
10、so evoked. The Bruegels are presented below in the order in which they appear to relate Audens lines.Bruegels influenceeditlines 58:Bruegel,The Census at Bethlehem, 1566Bruegels The Census at Bethlehem (catalogued at the Muse as Le dnombrement de Bethlem)5 of 1566 was acquired by the Muse in 1902. S
11、cott Horton noted that it would be a mistake to only look to the Icarus painting when explaining Audens poem, for The bulk of the poem is clearly about a different painting, in fact its the museums prize possession: The Census at Bethlehem. 6 The painting depicts Mary and Joseph center right, she on
12、 a donkey bundled up for the snow of Bruegels Flanders, and he leading with a red hat and long carpenters saw over his shoulder. They are surrounded by many other people: someone else . eating or opening a window or just walking dully / along.7 And there are children On a pond at the edge of the woo
13、d spinning tops and lacing on their skates.lines 913:Bruegel, The Massacre of the Innocents, 1565-7The Massacre of the Innocents (catalogued at the Muse as Le Massacre des Innocents)8 is a copy by Pieter Bruegel the Younger (15651636) of his fathers original dated to 15657 (illustrated). The Muse ac
14、quired it in 1830. The scene depicted, again in a wintry Flanders landscape, is recounted in Matthew 2:1618: Herod the Great, when told that a king would be born to the Jews, ordered the Magi to alert him when the king was found. The Magi, warned by an angel, did not and so, When Herod realized that
15、 he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under. In relation to the Census painting then we can see why the children of Audens poem did not specially want it the miraculous birth to happen.Both
16、 this scene and the earlier are used by Bruegel to make a political comment on the Spanish Habsburg rulers of Flanders at the time (note the Habsburg coat of arms on the right front of the main building in the Census and the Spanish troops in red in The Massacre arresting peasants and knocking down doors).citation needed With respect to Audens language we can see here the dreadful
