Why does the narrator of Paul Muldoon’s “Meeting the British” find it strange
)Why does the narrator of Paul Muldoon’s “Meeting the British” find it strange that he is “calling out in French”? How is this related to Muldoon himself? How is the Irish problem internationalized in Muldoon’s “Meeting the British”? Discuss.
2)W.H. Auden’s “The Shield of Achilles” is a depiction of totalitarian state in a postwar (World War II) world. It’s bleak view of the world is mitigated by the poem’s religious (Christian) dimension. Which two stanzas (give the stanza numbers) bring into the poem its religious dimension? Which Christian event is replaced by a modern event. Which line in these two stanzas points toward some sort of redemption, an expression of Christian God’s provision of free-will? Discuss how these stanzas add a religious meaning to the poem and relate your discussion to this mitigating line.
3)Why do you think W.H. Auden rejects the depiction of heroic view of life in Art in “The Shield of Achilles”? How does he dramatize his position? What is he arguing for? What is the true/proper role of art and poetry? Discuss.
4)In which two stanzas (give their numbers) does Achilles (the symbol of virtuous warrior) transform? How does the phrase “Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles” sound like to the reader? Discuss.
5)Is Auden’s “Musee des Beaux Arts” about humanity’s general indifference—because of its workaday ferocity—to individual human suffering in its midst? Why does Auden set “miracle of incarnation” against the problem of “suffering”? Why and how is “Nativity” in “Musee des Beaux Arts” marginalized? Discuss.
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