LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2003
Poetry Presentation Summary

Poetry: W. H. Auden, "Lullabye"

Poetry reader / discussion leader: Sergio Santos

Discussion recorder: Jana Stafford

“Lullaby” (1937) by W.H. Auden

Wystan Hugh Auden (1907-1973)

The course objective that lends itself the most to this poem is objective 4a: “To identify the “new American” who crosses, combines, or confuses ethnic or gender identities (e.g., Tiger Wood, Halle Berry, Lenny Kravitz, Mariah Carey, Dennis Rodman, RuPaul, David Bowie)”.  In Auden’s case it is the gender identities part of the objective that pertains—in that the poem is deliberately ambiguous (even cryptic one might say) about gender as the only gender ever clearly identified is that of Venus. 

One of the obvious things that this piece accomplishes as a lyric poem versus that of a prose narrative is a sort of abstract image of love that perhaps would not be as tolerable within the conventions of a prose narrative.  Generally in a prose piece the author would most likely not be able to speak as nebulously as he does in the poem and get away with it.  Whereas in “Lullaby” Auden’s ambiguity generates a sort of enigmatic quality that makes it intriguing, in a prose narrative this same ambiguity could be construed as just flat out confusing.

Read the Poem Aloud

The poem makes definite divisions in its use of imagery.  The major divisions include: Night vs. Day, Physical vs. Non-Physical, and Dreaming vs. Being awake. 

The poem is about love, but is the author ever clear about what kind of love?  We are discussing the poem in the gay literature part of the course, but how are we to distinguish that this is a “gay” poem? 

“For a poet like myself,” he wrote, “an autobiography would be redundant since anything of importance that happens to one is immediately incorporated, however obscurely, in a poem.”

http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/17/may99/auden.htm

We are generally taught in Literature courses to separate the author from the work, but Auden’s quote coupled with the poem itself puts such theory into question to a point where in this case (and I think that there are many others) where author and work become inseparable in the quest for interpretation.

Discussion

Question:  What makes this gay literature, or a gay poem?  Are there any markers that indicate it?

Sergio:  There is a definite division of imagery; dark and light, mortal world, and living world, a poem about forbidden love.

White:  There is the idea of refuge in love, a separate world, but that's not exclusively a gay idea.

Toni:  There is the implication of a person taking advantage of the person they are with for sexual encounter, there is no commitment.

White:  Gay people are often accused of promiscuity, so they have to have love in refuges, a conceivable marker.  “Nights of insult,” guilt seems to go with that too.  “Thoughtful children?”

Sergio:  That threw me; maybe it’s about loss of innocence.

Jana:  The innocence that a child has – children look at individuals more than groups – look in an innocent way – don’t know how to label yet.

Sergio:  That ties in with – “Proves the child ephemeral.”

White:  When you go into unknown territory – use stereotypes.  Gay people are often looked at as children by heterosexuals because of a perceived lack of responsibility etc.  What about Venus?

Sergio:  Venus is the only time gender is mentioned.

White:  does Venus have the same root, v-e-n, as in venereal disease?

Rosalyn:  Venus is the goddess of sex.

Ashley:  Aphrodite and Venus are the same.

Sergio:  Something is awakened, which goes along with division; soul and body, physical and non-physical.  What struck me is that being gay doesn’t have physical markers – which is the same with the poem – no gender.

Rosalyn:  There is the word “cost” – they paid for this person.

White:  I took “cost” as the ultimate cost of a thing.  In the third stanza, “farthing of the cost.”  The words “fashionable madmen,” working in a prophetic apocalyptic – if you stray you will pay.

Sergio:  It’s a universal that applies to everyone.

White:  Does it change the quality of the poem if you know it’s a man speaking to another man?  Is the poem suddenly wrong?

Sergio:  That seems to be the point.

Elizabeth:  Are we pulling it apart too much, finding meanings that aren’t there?

White:  Love is love.

Ashley:  Toni had said the poem is about a one night stand.  This is a lot of language to talk about a one night stand.

Jana:  The language of love.

Ashley:  I like it – it’s about love and being separated.

Rosalyn:  Maybe the poet settles for just that moment in the morning when it’s all over.  The poem reminds me that in the dark everything is beautiful, but in the harsh light of day you see imperfections.

Sergio:  It needs to be backed up by the text.  It falls apart if it’s a one night stand.  There is sympathy for love that can’t exist in the mortal world.

Alcira:  The poem reminds me of a lullaby.

White:  It is lyrical.  I wonder whether announcing this as a gay poem may have caused us to put up defenses – which may have caused us to look at it in a negative way.

Toni:  It doesn’t matter if it’s gay or straight.

Ginger:  It’s a beautiful poem – it’s spiritual.