Then again, from the line 'O where are you going? It is the woman who is questioning. And finally in the last stanza, it is the woman who is saying those lines O it's broken…burning.
Cheers for the detailed analysis Will. Absolutely flawless, except for your note on timeframe where you mention that it could be the 21st century. I believe that Auden deliberately shows the soldiers to have "horses", to give the sense that it is either the First World War or Second World War, as this would have been contextually relevant to the poet. However, this could just be my opinion.
There is an abundance of a voice neither the man or women are talking to each other. The only description is of the soldiers marching in. To continue my post about the soldiers being King George's men dragoons : I'm pretty certain of this and I think they are hunting a smuggler which they often were. All the other characters mentioned are referenced in other poems as being involved in smuggling.
The fact that the farmer is referred to as "so cunning" suppports this theory. I really do not think that horses signify the 2nd WW. On the contrary, I feel that the presence of an army on horses eliminates WW2. Personally I favour the idea that they are King George's men who wore scarlet coats and patrolled the British countryside often hunting down individual in lieu of a police force. Continuing on the idea that these are King George's men chasing smugglers, if you read Kipling's poem Smugglers Song, there are many explicit links.
Brilliant, excelled my understanding of all the Auden poems I've looked at on here… Not thinking about does James Honeyman or Musee des Beaux Arts are you? Unless an English A level student is willing to publish their work on here, I'm afraid not. How is the grammar structure used in the last stanza called? Assuming the first voice as the man, I dont think that he actually betray her, as he may have left her so as to join the coming army for the battle.
As suggested by the idealogy, that war knows no men no women it only brings destruction and separation. It left the innocent beloved couple to suffer who has nothing to do with the conflict between the two nations. And she is not killed. At least that's what made from the poems ending. If that's not so, please explain her murder, I don't get it. And that was a beautiful description… I've ever read. Thank you, will help in my test.
But please do tell her murder. If you know anything about WH Auden you will understand that more likely than not the two speakers are a gay couple — and in the s that alone could be cause for them to be hunted by the forces of the state.
Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. William Green. Feel free to skip to the parts most relevant to you. OWITS is a poem about the universality of war through the use of war affecting the lives of the couple in the poem causing them to run away. There is a sense of betrayal too depending on who you choose to be the first voice and second voice. The poem adopts the ballad form. This is a 18thth century form which is part of folk tradition.
The imitation of ballad form is used to reflect upon the subject matter of war: there is no time obscure time choice. It is recognisably in ballad form due to the consistent four beats in musical terms for every line.
Each stanza is four lines long. The structure explores how the material in the poem has been arranged. It describes the shape of the stanzas, sound patters, any musical references and the rhyming patter too. Musically, the poem has four beats to every line. This helps to emulate the sound of drums and the marching of the soldiers developing tension the further on into the poem.
There are four feet to every line. The main point to notice with the structure is the rhythmic devices used above which emphasise the sound the soldiers are making being marching and drumming. There is a degree of regularity with the syllable count for every stanza.
However, there are an erratic number of syllables on every line. For example, stanza one has 10, 9, 8 and 5. The first two lines of every stanza except the last which is is third person features the women as the voice.
The second voice is the man. For language analysis, I will refer to voice one as the women and voice two as the man. The language in a poem describes the effect of individual words and phrases. This helps to produce a vague time period as well as other linguistic techniques. This is common for the last word of line two for each stanza producing alliteration. The man as voice two is attempting to reassure the women. In the 19th century, soldiers commonly wore bright red scarlet uniforms so that if they were shot and wounded, the enemy would not be able to tell if they were bleeding or not.
The second option is more believable seeing that Auden does not want to pin down a time frame for this poem. The first stanza creates tension and drama for the arrival of the army. Stanza Two. This gives a sense of inevitability of the soldiers arriving and reminds us that the soldiers are continually marching closer and closer to the couple.
The marching has now increased in pace providing more fear for the couple. Stanza Three. This provides an idea that the army might be foreign if the couple views them as a threat. Stanza Four. This is desperate reassurance seeing because he knows they are a threat but he wants his wife to not know in protection of her.
Here are hints of the first betrayal. She could be kneeling to hide herself away from the army. However, she may be kneeling also in a last ditch attempt to pray. Stanza Five. The rest of the poem features the second voice leaving the first voice and running away. This makes clear the tension between the couple. The aggression and power of the army is made clear how they pushed down the door of the house.
The fate of the first voice is not told in the poem leaving the reader to fill in the ending to this poem with their own imagination. With the tension of the army increasing the further on into the poem, we assume that the army have killed the first voice.
The ideology of the poem is that war is something that has always been with us the human race. It makes clear the universality of war that no matter what time period, war stays the same. Different interpretations have suggested that the voices are not the women as the first voice but the man as the first voice and the women as the second voice.
This provides a different ideology to the poem. The women replies telling him its the soldiers. He is showing concern for the army approaching. The women tries to reassure him. His paranoia for the army is made clearer the further on into the poem. The women is surprisingly calm. The man, when seeing them starting to turn their way, hides himself from the army while the women is still in the open. At the end, the women leaves the man to be killed by the army.
It is clear the army has come to hunt the man down. The women may have known this which is why she escapes leaving the fate of the man in the hands of the army. Therefore, she thought it was better to run away and live than to show loyalty to her husband. The poem is in the form of a ballad. The syllabic structure has consistency although each line has erratic number of syllables.
The rhyming pattern is quatrain being ABAB. The rhythm such as the repeated phrase on line 2 provides anticipation for the army. The rhythm is used to replicate the sound of the drums. The voices can be viewed either way. The time setting is deliberately archaic and vague to create a universal ideology. The rhythm generally is used to imitate the marching soldiers. Therefore, the longer the poem goes on, the longer the soldiers have been marching and the closer they are to the characters creating panic.
There is four feet to every line with a tetrameter of alternating iambics and anapaests. The narrative is a conversation between the two characters but changes to 3rd person at the end. He is bound to perform his public duty.
So he feels an urge to join his regiment and marches on to some unknown frontier. Critical Appreciation The most important element of Auden's poem O, What is that Sound is the portrayal and rendering of an emotionally charged situation. To quote Dennis Davison: The ballad "presents a dramatic situation without comments, by means of question and answer dialogue between a woman and a man who forsakes her - a standard situation of the old-folk ballads.
The language and the reference to soldier, doctor and farmer seems carefully chosen to be practically timeless. On the surface level the theme is betray of love, violence and patriotism. But the other segment of the poem points to a political expediency in the face of which such values as love and faithfulness are abandoned.
The poet seems to hola his moral judgement in abeyance on the lover's act of descertions, as he has attributed a motive to the lover, although the motive is not explained and merely hinted at: O where are you going? Stay with me here! Were the vows you swore deceiving, deceiving? No, I promised to love you, dear, But I must be leaving. The lover actually is not obvious of his promises of love, but he feels he has a reason to love. The lover is placed in a situation where he has to make a choice between his love and the cause which he exposes.
So, his betrayal is considered and calculated, based on his beliefs although this view is contrary to that of John Fuller. The theme is the stock theme of the old ballads. The first speaker is the lady, the beloved, who is afraid that her soldier-lover would leave her at the sight of the scarlet soldiers. Her fears are conveyed by the intensity and urgency of her repetitions at the end of the second line of each stanza 'drumming, drumming,' 'Brightly; Brightly', 'Wheeling Wheeling', 'cunning, curring'.
According to John Fuller, "O what is that sound is a much anthologized and compelling ballad whose point lies in one's presumption that the eighteenth-century soldiery were as likely as not to be the instruments of repression, and that, therefore, the second speaker of the poem is an honest rebel for whom the cause of continued resistance is more important even than the girl he loves.
The rebel's Scale of values is not approved by Auden, however, and the poem is thus an important political comment appropriate to his developing emphasis on love and individual values. The contemporary application is obvious, and the poem's success is built upon the way this application lurks teasingly within the simple musicality and accumulating menace of the poem.
Besides the theme of surface level the another implication is the menace of violence present, in all ages. Causes might differ from age to age but the marching and thumping soldiers epitomise the forces or violence ana oppression to which peaceful people like the lovers are even exposed. Main element in the poem, is the building up of the situation and the focus, of the poem is on the emotional state of the lovers.
The diction of the poem is simple. The anapaestic beat in the poem harmonize with the marching of the soldiers. The repetition of the last word in the second line of each stanza underlines the sense of urgency in the central situation of the poem. Conclusion: Auden's ballad O What is that Sound presents us with the quintessence of betrayal and violence. And the presentation is as simple as a mediaeval ballad. The last two stanzas form a powerful and terrifying climax: O where are you going?
Stay with me here? Were the vows you swore deceiving; deceiving? O it's broken the lock and splintered the door O it's the gate where they are turning turning; With its emotionally charged situation which is tense, suspenseful and loaded with implications, the poem is no doubt an amazing achievement.
O What is That Sound. Summary Stanza In the first stanza the situation is that a soldier intends going to war, but he is persuaded by his beloved to stay with her. The soldier then wants to know the flashing light being seen by him from a distance.
The soldier-lover then asks as to what those soldiers are doing with their armour this morning. The soldier then wants to know as to why have they left that road down there, and the beloved tries to satisfy him by saying that perhaps they have been ordered to go that way. The soldier-lover sees the marching soldiers stopping near the doctor's house, and asks his beloved as to why have they reined their horses there?
Then the soldiers are seen stopping by the parson's house. In the seventh stanza the soldier again sees them stopping by the farmer's house, and wants to know its reason. In this stanza it is said that the soldler-lover can no longer ha stopped by his beloved. The soldier is tempted to go to war. The most important element of Auden's poem O, What is that Sound is the portrayal and rendering of an emotionally charged situation.
Auden presents a situation which is tense, full of suspense and loaded with implications which enlarge its significance beyond the radius of the immediate theme of the poem. The poet seems to hola his moral judgement in abeyance on the lover's act of descertions, as he has attributed a motive to the lover, although the motive is not explained and merely hinted at:.
O where are you going? Auden's ballad O What is that Sound presents us with the quintessence of betrayal and violence.
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