W. H. Auden

Auden: 1929 - 1938, Germany--Auden spent most of his time in Berlin, Germany doing anthropological work documenting the political upheaval that would lead to rise of the Hitler and Nazi party.

--He spent a brief seven weeks in Spain in 1937 documenting the Spanish Civil War.

--Auden and his partner, Christopher Isherwood, left Europe in 1938 when it became clear that Germany was a dangerous, unstable place to be.

--He was witness to the persecution of various groups under the Nazi regime and as a gay man fled for his own safety.

Census at Bethlehem The painting shows a Flemish, Beligian village in winter at sundown. A group of people is gathered at a building on the left. Other people are making their way to the same building, including the figures of Joseph and the pregnant Virgin Mary on a donkey. A pig is being slaughtered. People are going about their daily business in the cold, children are showing playing with toys on the ice and having snowball fights. At the very center of the painting is a spoked wheel, sometimes interpreted as being a reference to the wheel of fortune. To the right, a man in a small hut is shown holding a clapper, a warning to keep away from leprosy. Leprosy was endemic in that part of Europe when the painting was created. There is a begging bowl in front of the hut. As he often did, Bruegel treats a biblical story as a contemporary event. And once again, reference to particular political events has been adduced - in this case, the severity of the Spanish administration in the southern Netherlands.[2]

Massacre of the Innocents -

--Bruegel translated the scene to a 16th century Netherlandish village, where the Flemish villagers are attacked by Spanish soldiers and German mercenaries, possibly as a commentary on the behaviour of occupying Spanish troops in the prelude to the Dutch Revolt against Spanish rule, also known as the Eighty Years' War.

The Poem: Musee des Beaux Arts (1938-39)--Notice the dispassionate tone

--The quirky, understated language

--The lack of specificity to any time and any place

--Are there solutions presented?