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In his own poems, this truth often adopted a moral or social guise. “Poetry,”Auden wrote, “is a way of extending our knowledge of good and evil.” Many ofhis poems are intended to help men and women make good moral choices, eventhough the way y which the poems do this is not always clear.

Auden wrote “!aw !ike !ove” "#$# during an extremely fecund period in whichhe also wrote “%he &nknown 'iti(en,” “)eptemer ", "#$#,” “In Memory of *.+.

 eats,” and “Mus-e des +eaux Arts.”

 %he poem muses on ust what the law is in light of what others claim it is. %hepoem presents a panoply of people and possiilities, all of which seem trueenough to some degree. In agriculture and gardening, for example, the primary!aw is apparently the sun/ all actions are oriented around it and its changes. !awcan e seen in the “wisdom of the old,” for they have experienced the ways ofthe world and can apply general principles ased on their experience0and theold can “shrilly scold” whether they really know what1s est or not.

At the same time, the principle ehind the law might not e that which haspower 2the sun, or the divine as interpreted through a priest or scripture3 orexperience 2the aged3, ut that which has immediate reality, which is why “thesenses of the young” also seem to carry lawmaking authority to guide action. Achild1s inclination can e said to e unfettered y the distorting weight ofcivili(ation. Indeed, this seems to e the point of “law4aiding scholars” who

claim no natural asis for moral law0as, perhaps, the philosopher 5iet(scheclaimed that ideas like “good” and “evil” are socially constructed0the evidenceis that di6erent cultures punish di6erent things, ust as they wear di6erentclothes and use di6erent words for “7ood4morning,” as though law and moralityare ust fashion and emotion.

 %his point of view is not far from what udges might say, that is, that theyprimarily interpret their society1s laws and apply precedents8 “!aw is as I1ve toldyou efore 9 “!aw is %he !aw.”

Another kind of power or self4actuali(ation leads to di6erent claims to have the

law for oneself. “Always” does “the loud angry crowd” claim tyranny of themaority to impose its own views on others. Meanwhile, “the soft idiot” claims a

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uni:ue law for himself or herself, with special laws and exceptions that apply to“Me”0what the philosopher ;ant argued was immoral.

 %he repetition of “!aw” and “!aw is” in the poem emphasi(es the multiple ways

that people interpret the !aw for their own ends. %he irregular length of stan(assimilarly emphasi(es this point. %he rhymes, mainly in the form of couplets,seem to provide ironic distance from each group of people and what they say the!aw is.

 %he prolem presented in the poem is that none of the di6erent kinds of peoplelets an ultimate oectivity guide their morality and action. If there is a naturallaw, an ultimate morality, udges might say that this is what provides their

 udgment in di

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take those metaphors seriously, we can analy(e them creatively and incorporatethem into stronger accounts of the law.

 %his rilliant poem is a precise and universal portrait of a tyrant. Auden, wholived in +erlin during Bitler1s rise to power, and who, like so many writers of hisgeneration, oined the International +rigade in 1$C to >ght the Dascists in )pain,saw his fair share of tyrants. I >nd it devastatingly powerful that this description

can still e applied to tyrants of our own time. %ragically, the suect of this pieceis timeless.

)o, whether your read this poem as aout 7od, a scientist, artist, or a humandictator, it1s clear that Auden really gets tyranny. %yrants are after “Perfection, ofa kind”, he writes. An insane, inhuman, deluded idea of perfection, of course. Iam interested that Auden talks aout “the poetry he invented”. All poetry ispropaganda, in a sense/ when we write a poem, we use all sorts of ploys andtechni:ues to amplify our ideas or the message or emotion we wish to convey Eto colour the reader1s mind. I >nd it fascinating that Auden seems to almostidentify with the tyrant in the poem, in the sense that E as a poet E he seeks a

certain symmetry, a certain perfection, through his art. Is that not why we createArtF %o make sense of a senseless worldF %o create order out of chaosF Is that notthe motivation ehind all scienti>c in:uiryF All of this paints the tyrant as acra(ed sort of creator, prepared to do anything in order to achieve his madvisions.

“*hen he laughed, respectale senators urst with laughter”. %his line stronglyevokes the way in which a powerful tyrant can so poison and enslave the mindsof even intelligent, “respectale” people, that they will follow his lead. I amthinking here particularly of those who E though ordinary, “respectale” people Ewent along with the atrocities of the 5a(i party as though possessed orsleepwalking. And how far will we go to create perfect ArtF And to make ourscienti>c discoveriesF

 %he >nal line of the poem is devastating8 “And when he cried the little childrendied in the streets.” %his sentence reminds us that the suect of this poem isreal and extremely serious. @very move the tyrant makes a6ects the life ofsomeody, somewhere.