Love through the ages
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Modernism – 1890’s – 1940’s Post-modernism – 1945- present H Auden (1907-1973) Auden was born in England but later became an American citizen. He is known as a poet, literary critic, essayist and worked on documentary, plays and other forms of performance. His work is very highly regarded. He employs a variety of tone, form and content and often engages with moral and political issues, with his main themes being love, politics, citizenship, religion and morals. He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University. Lullaby from Another Time (1940) Lay your sleeping head, my love, Human on my faithless arm; Time and fevers burn away Individual beauty from Thoughtful children, and the grave Proves the child ephemeral: But in my arms till break of day Let the living creature lie, Mortal, guilty, but to me The entirely beautiful. Soul and body have no bounds: To lovers as they lie upon Her tolerant enchanted slope In their ordinary swoon, Grave the vision Venus sends Of supernatural sympathy, Universal love and hope; While an abstract insight wakes Among the glaciers and the rocks The hermit's carnal ecstasy. Beauty, midnight, vision dies: Let the winds of dawn that blow Softly round your dreaming head Such a day of welcome show Eye and knocking heart may bless, Find our mortal world enough; Noons of dryness find you fed By the involuntary powers, Nights of insult let you pass Watched by every human love. Certainty, fidelity On the stroke of midnight pass Like vibrations of a bell And fashionable madmen raise Their pedantic boring cry: Every farthing of the cost, All the dreaded cards foretell, Shall be paid, but from this night Not a whisper, not a thought, Not a kiss nor look be lost. 1953 - Elizabeth II is crowned Queen Modernism – 1890’s – 1940’s Post-modernism – 1945- present
L 
arkin is widely regarded as one of the best poets of the second half of the 20th Century. Although he is often painted as a pessimistic character, his love poetry contains poignant and affective imagery. Larkin was also a well known novelist and music critic, especially of jazz. He declined the offer of the Poet Laureate in 1984 and despite his success continued to work in Hull University Library for most of his life. Broadcast – from Whitsun Weddings (1964) Giant whispering and coughing from Vast Sunday-full and organ-frowned-on spaces Precede a sudden scuttle on the drum 'The Queen', and a huge resettling. Then begins A snivel on the violins: I think of your face among all those faces, Beautiful and devout before Cascades of monumental slithering, One of your gloves unnoticed on the floor Beside those new, slightly-outmoded shoes. Here it goes quickly dark. I lose All but the outline of the still and withering Leaves on half-emptied trees. Behind The glowing wavebands, rabid storms of chording By being distant overpower my mine All the more shamelessly, their cut-off shout Leaving me desperate to pick out Your hands, tiny in all that air, applauding. 1959 – 1975 - The Vietnam War Post-modernism – 1945- present Post- Colonialism – 1950’s - present |