In an earlier post today, commenter “PA Cat” writes this:
Today marks the 84th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland that is usually considered the beginning of WWII. I went back to look at a poem by W.H. Auden associated with that date, namely “September 1, 1939.” The first stanza reads as follows:
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
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.The poem is interesting for several reasons, one being its revival following 9/11. As Ian Sansom notes, ” . . . in the aftermath of 9/11, many American newspapers reprinted Auden’s poem in its entirety: it was widely circulated and discussed online and in print. It seemed prophetic, wise and relevant, almost too good to be true. This is partly because it mentions September and New York, circulating fears, and the unmentionable odour of death, all in its first stanza. It was the right poem, in the right place, for a wrong time.”
The other reason why the poem is interesting is that Auden later disowned it, stating that “The whole poem, I realized, was infected with an incurable dishonesty – and must be scrapped.” He refused to have it included in anthologies of his poetry, but readers have persisted in reviving the poem again and again. Sansom goes on to describe “September 1, 1939” as “the world’s greatest zombie poem. It won’t die – and never will – because people want it to be true. . . .
Later in the thread, commenter “IrishOtter49” asks a good question: “Why did Auden dislike his own poem?”
I recall reading about that once, and although I can’t find the essay where I found it, I located this, which is in agreement with what I recall:
… [P]erhaps Auden wouldn’t be surprised that “September 1, 1939,” a poem he essentially disowned, is one of his best remembered. Penned to mark the outbreak of World War II, the poem had a renewed profile after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Auden came to dislike “September 1, 1939,” especially its much-quoted assertion, “We must love one another or die.” The line later seemed nonsensical to him, since people must ultimately die regardless of their actions.
The line that is probably best remembered is the one Auden disliked the most, perhaps for reasons having to do with logic – we all die anyway – but I believe he also may have found it somewhat trite and pat. I’m guessing at that part. I think he was too hard on himself about this, because if the line is interpreted as referring to humanity as a whole rather than the individual, it’s dealing with something different: can humans survive without love, or will hatred take over and destroy us?
In this, the line is a bit like the famous – and often-reviled or mocked – state motto of New Hampshire, “Live Free or Die.” Yes, we die either way, free or in slavery. But the motto is saying that the speaker chooses freedom over fear of death, and is willing to die for freedom. That’s a different message than in Auden’s poem, which I’m pretty sure is not saying that we should be willing to die for love. But “or die” is a way of saying something else, even though “or” is not really a choice for humans about dying; it’s always “and.” Part of the question is also, “how we will live and how will we die, and when?” as well as “how many of us will die for lack of this precious thing?”
Auden may have had a more personal reason to dislike his poem as well, although this is just another guess on my part. Note that the poem’s narrator is placed in New York. Auden was British, but he had moved to America in 1939. From the link:
Others couldn’t help noticing that his departure coincided with the start of Britain’s ordeal in World War II. Novelist Evelyn Waugh would later claim that Auden had left “at the first squeak of an air-raid warning.”
His absence from England even came up in the British Parliament, although the government took no action against him. “In Britain,” says Carpenter, “some of those left-wing intellectuals who had supported and admired Auden during the 1930s were beginning to be shocked by his decision to remain in America.”
Auden, Carpenter concludes, “does not seem to have faced the question whether he had a moral duty to help, however trivially, in the fight against Hitler.”
“In Auden’s case,” Smith writes of Auden’s move to America, “it was probably not cowardice: Those who knew him are firm in their rejection of that charge.”
That entire era, and the controversy of his move, might not have created the most pleasant memories in Auden. At any rate, the poet doesn’t own his own poem. The world is free to make what it will of it, and the world’s verdict is that it is good.
My favorite part has never been that line. It’s the last stanza:
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
And in the non-poetry realm, on Hitler’s invasion of Poland:
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. To justify the action, Nazi propagandists accused Poland of persecuting ethnic Germans living in Poland. They also falsely claimed that Poland was planning, with its allies Great Britain and France, to encircle and dismember Germany. The SS, in collusion with the German military, staged a phony attack on a German radio station. The Germans falsely accused the Poles of this attack. Hitler then used the action to launch a “retaliatory” campaign against Poland.
And a couple of weeks later, the Soviets came in from the east in accord with Hitler and Stalin’s pact.
Switching back to poetry and the subject of love, Edna St. Vincent Millay has something to say on a personal level. I’ll let her have the last word:
