W.H. Auden's Poems and Homosexuality
W. H. Auden published “This lunar beauty” in 1930; he published “Now through night’s caressing grip” in 1935, and he published “Lay your sleeping head, my love” in 1937 (Auden 16; 41; 51). “[I]t has been argued that the first part of the twentieth century’s culture is dominated by attempts to keep homosexuality hidden, … [and a] number of homosexual writers in the period maintain public silence about their sex lives, and dramatize homosexual themes indirectly, if at all” (Caserio). While it’s unclear whether Auden’s abovementioned 1930s poems dramatize homosexual themes, they do share obscure settings and references to wandering, clandestine lovers who seek healing, safety, and freedom. The lovers find what they seek both in the obscurity of the night and in the obscure diction of the poems’ speakers who don’t even identify them by gender. The speakers act as the mediators of the experience of clandestine love and they invite readers to travel to places where illicit love occurs, empathize with clandestine lovers, and see the beauty in their love. Because genders are carefully obscured, the poems serve as pieces of coded propaganda that advocate for the freedom of clandestine, and possibly homosexual, lovers.
First, all three poems share obscure, nighttime settings and references to wandering, clandestine lovers who seek healing, safety, and freedom. “This lunar beauty” is described in the following manner:
This like a dream
Keeps other time
And daytime is
The loss of this;
For time is inches
And the heart’s changes
Where ghost has haunted
Lost and wanted. (8-15)
Da...
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The speaker begins the poem an ethereal tone masking the violent nature of her subject matter. The poem is set in the Elysian Fields, a paradise where the souls of the heroic and virtuous were sent (cite). Through her use of the words “dreamed”, “sweet women”, “blossoms” and
I’m writing my Poetry Analysis over gay rights and equal rights for love. I picked the song “Same Love” by Macklemore. His real name is Ben Haggery he born June 19, 1983 in Seattle, Washington. Career began in 2000 but really became popular in 2012 with release of "The Heist". I love this song because it it has a great meaning to LGBT community and sends out a great message to everyone and informing them that it’s okay to be gay and to embrace it and love yourself.
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The poem uses many literary devices to enhance the meaning the words provide. The poem starts at the beginning of the story as the moon comes to visit the forge. The moon is said to be wearing “her skirt of white, fragrant flowers” (Lorca 2) as its bright light penetrates the scene. The poem states “the young boy watches her, watches. / The young boy is watching her” (3-4). The repetition of the phrase emphasizes the young boy’s infatuation with the moon. The scene is set with intensity by the phrase “electrified air” (5) and a tense feeling is brought into the poem. As “the moon moves her arms” (6), she is given traits of being alive and having her own human qualities. Personification of the moon into a woman exemplifies the desire that the child would have for the woman, and creates a more appealing form for the moon to appear as. The child cries, “flee, moon, moon, moon” (9) with urgency, showing his concern for her. He warns her “they would make with your heart / white necklaces and rings” (11-12). This refers back to the metaphor that the moon is made of hard tin, but still personifies her by giving her a heart. The moon is additionally personified when she says “ young boy, leave me to dance”(13). She has now taken the form of a sensual and erotic gypsy dancer furthering the desire of the young boy. This brings Spanish culture to the poem because gypsies are known to travel throughout Spain. The mo...
Homosexuality remained illegal in most parts of America until the 1960s, but Ginsberg refused to equate his Gay identity with criminality. He wrote about his homosexuality in almost every poem that he wrote, most specifically in ‘Many Loves’ (1956) and ‘Please Master’ (1968), his paeans to his errant lover Neal Cassady. Ginsberg’s poems are full of explicit sexual detail and scatological humour, but the inclusion of such details should not be interpreted as a childish attempt to incense the prudish and the square.
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These lines may seem confusing if not read properly. At first look, these might not make sense because the night is acquainted with darkness, but when the lines are read together as intended, one can see that the night is “cloudless” and filled with “starry skies” (1, 1-2). The remaining lines of the first stanza tell the reader that the woman's face and eyes combine all the greatness of dark and light:
The poets integrated ?metaphysical conceits? as focal parts of these poems. Along with these, they used effective language as a basis for their convincing arguments, they included subjects of periodical importance (e.g. ?courtship? and ?religion?), and use very clever structures that are manipulated in order to make the poem read in the desired way. The very clear indication of the theme in question was strongly aided by the way in which the personas portrayed the emotions they felt and the way they showed their attitudes towards the subject. Considering all these factors, the poets made critical arguments to the mistresses in order to alter their views, thus changing their minds, on denying the poets the sex that they desired so strongly.
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says Anthony Rotundo, attempting to define the boundaries between romantic friendship and erotic love, in relation to same gender friendships, in the late nineteenth century (Miller 4). Same gender relationships could exist on a physical level, expressing affection, without bringing up questions of sexual preference. Further, F.S. Ryman, a gentleman in his twenties, wrote of the very few documents ever discovered from the Victorian age regarding intimate encounters and the emotions attached to them. He has helped give us an idea of what some male relationships were like back then. In his diary, August of 1886, he describes spending the night in his best friends arms with out sexual intentions.
The three poets convey the feelings of seriousness, happiness, and failure. In the poem “Simile”, Scott Momaday explains how people and the actions we do are similar to animals in which the comparison was towards deer. In “Moon Rondeau” by Carl Sandburg he illustrates that working together in a relationship, you may be able to accomplish a task and generate a strong bond. In the final poem “Woman” by Nikki Giovanni she displays how one may want to grow and be someone special to your significant other but they may not care of what their other may want. The three poets are illustrating the theme of humans being similar to animals in which case they either work together or they just ignore each other within the literary similarities and differences of the three poems.