Continuing on the topic of poetry that we have been talking about in the last couple of classes in ASTU I think that an interesting connection I found was the way a poem written in the past could be interpreted in a different way and fit perfectly in another situation. That is the case of the poem September 1, 1939 written on the date that the title says. This poem gained public attention when sixty-two years later it reappeared after the terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in New York. The original poem was written at the start of the German invasion of Poland at the beginning of WWII. The poem has a powerful message and the way it interprets the events of that day make it suitable for the terrorist attacks. At the beginning of the poem the author, W.H. Auden writes:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Interviews from people experiencing the events on September 11, 2001 often talk about the smell and the toxicity there was in the air after both the towers of the World Trade Center came down. I think the language used in the poem gives the reader the opportunity to interpret it in different ways and adapt it to different events.
One important difference that stands out from the original poem is that the last line of the eighth stanza was changed from:There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another and die.
to
We must love one another or die.
Why do you think that line was changed and how does the message make a different impact with that modification?
Till next time,
~Gabriel